DivergentZ
by Rancidity
Summary: [Zombies] In the wake of the war on Abnegation something horrible goes wrong. The first shot kills, but the dead rises. The characters of Divergent fight to survive and come to grips with the darkness in everyone, including themselves. Can they save their city? Each other? Themselves? Or will they abandon all hope. WIP
1. Day Z-RO

**This may be a rather short story, but it could build into something. . .more. Depending.** **Let me know what you think.**

 **This is a WARNING that it will get GRAPHIC. It'll be gory, and probably dark.**

 **I've been wanting to write a zombie apocalypse Chicago with the Divergent characters for a while now-** **It takes place _or_ starts during the war on Abnegation.**

 **There will be romance of course! It sucks that you can only have a limited number of genres cause there's a bunch that zombie story's can go under.**

 **Reviews, favorites, follows and everything are a super encouragement and I can't wait to take this bloody, gut filled adventure with you all.**

* * *

 **[Day Zero]**

 **\\\Eric/**

Eric could see the bloody face pressed against the shatter-proof window, the eyes wide and crazy, the tongue licking obscenely at the glass, leaving a bloody trail wherever it went. He sits plastered against the leather seat of the large black armored vehicle with his face peering listlessly out at the deadened creature trying to paw it's way in.

His breath hot against the glass, steaming it up and the creature licks furiously, clanking it's teeth at it as though it's trying to eat his every exhale through the thick window. Eric can feel his entire body covered in a thin layer of sweat and his clothes sticking to him, he holds his pistol relaxed at his side although it's already been emptied of it's magazine.

Otherwise he would roll the window down and jam his gun in the opening and fire a bullet into the damned creatures gaping mouth.

Finally Max finds his voice, shaky, hollow and breathless from the front seat, he turns pressing his palm to the steering wheel to check on the younger Leader of Dauntless. "How's your foot?" He asks Eric, who, remains silent and brooding, un-answering.

He wonders why they haven't driven off yet, why they sit here listening to the screams and growls of what he thinks is people and _or_ the ones that aren't quite people anymore. Eric taps the glass and watches as the milky white eyes of what used to be a Dauntless female he knew flick aimlessly around frantically her teeth chattering together as if she's cold.

From all over the vehicle there are dull thuds. and scraping noises the fists and claws beating uselessly against the vehicle meant to withstand explosives and gunfire. The most they do is shake it, like they can topple it over and for the moment Eric thinks they're just driving down a dirt road to Amity, or something, and the wheels run over a loose rock or gravel and bumps, but, he knows better because the vehicle hasn't started yet.

Tris had shot him in the foot, after he held Four at gun point. Divergent. That's the least of their worries now. Divergent. Nothing but a problem that didn't even need fixing and now look at what's happened. Dauntless and Abnegation both as good as gone, and that's if there are even any _people_ left. No telling what will happen to the rest of the city if they can't contain this in one sector.

Eric stretches his leg out over the length of the back seats and scrutinizes the bloody gaping hole in the lip of his boot, he doesn't even try to move his toes as the bullet had gone right through the fleshiest part of his foot an inch above them. The blood oozes out from the top and the bottom thick and slow, the entire front portion of his size 11 boot is slick with the dark liquid.

 _Must still be in shock_ , he thinks because he doesn't feel any of the pain. There is no pain yet but he knows to expect it later. If there is a later. They could head back to Dauntless, hold it up. Barricade every entrance and tend to the wounded and regroup, but no they need to get Jeanine to Erudite.

Max repeats himself but his tone is slightly panicked.

Eric turns his head to focus on the older leader. His face is sunken almost pale for someone with such dark skin, eyes bulging out of their sockets and there's something frantic there, pleading. The older leader pushes further to turn almost all the way around in his seat, the tendons in his neck bulging as though if he strained hard enough he could get Eric to speak.

Eric knows it must be the older man's need for confirmation that _someone_ is still with him. That he isn't alone in the closed space with dozens of what used to be fellow Dauntless trying to claw their ways through the metal frames and bite at their flesh.

But Eric doesn't answer. The only thought in his head while he stares at Max is: _What have we done? What the fuck have we done?_

* * *

 **\\\Four/**

Four heard something shrill, like a woman shrieking. Something had him by the leg. He shoots a fast glance at Tris at the top of the stairs in what used to be his childhood Abnegation home before he gets dragged down, his elbow making a sickening crack against the concrete stair as he falls..

He flails his leg, rolling onto his back, but the iron grip on his ankle is unrelenting. Four brings the heel of his other boot down hard on whatever holds him, Tris grips his arm digging her nails into his skin in an attempt to help him up the stairs. Her gun slung uselessly over her shoulder along her back, having used all her ammo.

Four maneuvers his pistol between his knees and takes a deep breath fires a single bullet on the exhale into the snarling face of an Abnegation woman, and he makes no attempt to put a name to the face. _I've just shot her in the head_ , he thinks.

The Abnegation woman, tangled hair matted with blood and a large gaping wound on her shoulder where _something_ had torn open her flesh, demented all white-milky eyes as though they've rolled to the back of her head. The flash of the gun imprints her face into his memory, he can't help but recognize her.

He watches as the blood, brains and dark matter splatters against the concrete wall behind her and she falls face down with a sickening crack as she hits the stair, her bony broken fingered hand dropping from his pant leg and he scrambles to get up the last remaining steps. Tris uses all her frantic strength to haul him up with her and even when he's up she doesn't let go of him.

Tris slams Four's bedroom door closed behind her and he jams his old desk chair up against the handle like he'd done a thousand times to keep his deranged father out- only this time, he thinks grimly, it's to keep something much _worse_ out.

He couldn't believe there could be something worse than his father, and he didn't even know what. _What is going on? What happened to everyone? Erudite. Erudite did this._

Four pants, dry heaving, leaned over with his shaking hands pressed against his knees. He swallows a few times, licking his dry lips, sure that he could keep everything down. Thanking himself silently for eating nothing more than a dinner roll the night before. He knew what was to come, but nothing- no, he had no idea.

"Four." Tris calls softly her voice breaks.

He turns his head still panting heavily, to get a hold of his constitution to see her wide eyed, she covers her mouth quickly, squeezing her wide brown eyes shut as though she's trying not to scream or cry. He knows she looked out the window, but instead of going to look at what she saw he strains his ears to listen, through the screaming outside at the noises coming from right behind the door, he can hear them _downstairs_.

Footsteps clutter. He registers the moaning, hissing, screeching sounds, glass breaking and gunshots ringing through the walls outside, straight into his skull as if it was just that one gunshot on the stairs echoing in his mind over and over. His stomach rolls and he clamps a hand over his mouth as he retches. Four looks back at Tris and he thought for sure she looked paler and scared shit-less.

He was sure he looked the same.

* * *

 **\\\Jeanine/**

"Jeanine." One of the fellow Erudite screeches. His voice falls on deaf ears. She can hardly make out a sound, her lips part only to allow her rapid breathing as she gazes through wide unblinking dry eyes at the screens around her. She clamps a hand over her mouth as a shudder rips through her torso, the beginning of a scream.

A flurry of movement around her as Erudite frantically scramble to gather up anything they can use to protect themselves. All Jeanine can do is watch as carnage plays out on each screen, rotating to show her every angle. Everywhere she looks people are being torn to shreds, innards splayed over the freshly cut grass between the monotonous Abnegation houses.

The splatter of dark splotches plastered over the gray concrete and lush green grass. Bodies, parts of bodies, the dead dragging themselves across the ground. People flailing under hordes of others as they tear into them, leaving them nothing but mush and mass. Abnegation, hurdling over people, their once gray clothing torn, ripped and bloodied, and their once stoic unfeeling faces ravenous, vicious, wide eyes and teeth bared.

Dauntless running fleeing or, firing endless rounds into crowds that don't stop coming. The bullets incinerating them and yet they continue until shot in the head or completely decimated. Those that aren't already among the unknown kind barricade themselves inside houses, or scramble onto the flat rooftops.

 _We are in Abnegation. Right now._ Jeanine thinks and then like that realization floods her system she can suddenly hear again. Hear the bloodcurdling screams and gunshots not through the monitors but _just_ outside their flimsy setup. "Jeanine!" An Erudite female screams. "JEANINE!"

It's too late. When Jeanine turns she has just enough time to raise her arm as a crazed un-Dauntless lunges at her from the torn tent door. The creature has her by the wrist in a tight fleshy grip. She can feel the brittle nails digging into her skin, and the weight of him pushes her back till they crash against the console.

She empties her lungs in one giant scream as the Dauntless leans in to take a bite out of her, those white milky eyes rolling around in it's skull. Clear stream of snot running down under its nose and a foamy froth around it's mouth and gums, rimming it's pearly white teeth.

Then it gets wretched away from her, the nails create a streak of fresh crimson along her arm as it scratches deep into her skin. Falling, dropping dead backwards with a knife protruding from the back of it's skull. Jeanine blinks at it and then cradles her injured arm to her chest, her hand applying pressure against the steady trickle of blood that runs down her elbow. No pain. Not yet.

"Are you hurt?" Asks an Erudite male, his glasses slightly broken and crooked over his nose. His eyes travel over her and all she can do is shake her head, _No_. She moves her mouth but is unable to utter a coherent word. Which is unusual for her, as the representative of Erudite. She's the smartest person in the city, she knows how to talk.

The gravity of the situation weights down on her. _What went wrong?_ The mindless drone serum worked many times before. They tested it. It worked. _What is all this?_ _Why have the denizens of Chicago become ravenous beasts?_ She should have the answers, she should know this. This isn't their fault. This is not Erudite's fault.

The sound of boots incoming snaps her head up towards the entrance and Max, followed by Eric walks into the tent, brushing the shredded door to the side. Both of them glare directly at her, guns in hand. _It's not my fault. It's not my fault._ She thinks over and over _. I can fix this. I can fix it._

"We've got a vehicle outside. Hurry." Max hollers gesturing for Jeanine to move. "We'll fortify Erudite with our remaining troops, send a message out to any survivors and the remaining factions to seek refuge and barricade themselves. We need to keep the electricity running through the city. Re-establish the government, keep it from collapsing. We can contain this after we regroup."

Max sounds smarter than her at the moment. His tone is military and firm. He's taking control of Erudite and all Jeanine can do is nod. Her mind racing through the formula, the serum they used to take control of Dauntless' minds, of almost Max's entire faction.

 _What happened here couldn't have been because of my serum_ , she thought. _It's just not possible._

Eric grips her forearm tightly and she flinches at his vise-like hold, his fingers curl around the sleek dark blue fabric of her blouse as he hauls her towards the door. It would seem like he want's to break her arm. _They need me,_ She thinks, _they think I can fix this. I can._

She trips once over her high heels, and she steps purposefully trying to regain her composure although her sharp heels dig into the soft soil with every step and she has to pull her legs to get them out. Eric's walk is labored, and he limps occasionally and Jeanine knows he is injured. She steals a glace at his foot and see's the gunshot wound.

Despite that she feels safe, the leaders of Dauntless know how important she is. If anyone in the city can do something about this it's the Leaders of Dauntless and Jeanine. At least that's what she thinks.

Her eyes then travel over the distance, not even a mile away at Abnegation. _I didn't do this._ She thinks over and over staring wide eyed at a lone Dauntless girl huddled over the body of a fallen comrade, holding him close to her as though mourning the loss, her form moving back and forth like she's crying, rocking him.

The girl pulls her head back and Jeanine realizes she's _not_ holding him, shes _devouring_ him.

She tilts her head at the lightening sky, it's just barely morning. The sun just barely creeping its way up past the hills between the rows of monochrome houses, the blood trickles down her mouth, spilling over her chin and she turns her head sloppily in their direction, eyes focusing on nothing. The growl and guttural, feral sound rips from her body and the blood, whatever she was eating flies out of her mouth as she struggles towards them.

 _I didn't do this. Whatever this is, it isn't us._

* * *

 **\\\Christina/**

The moment she opened her eyes or thought she opened them, she felt an extreme drowsiness in her body as though she was just waking up from a long slumber. Not even a second before she can take in her bearings or register if she's standing of laying down a heavy weight crashes into her, the sound of snarling and snapping rips through her hollow ears as the creature gnaws at her, she holder her arm against his throat keeping his face just an inch from biting her nose off.

Christina blinks at the distorted face of an Abnegation man, his eyes a yellowing tint, red rimmed and unfocused. Spit flies out of his open mouth and his tongue hangs loosely only attached by a small portion of the pink flesh like he's bitten it on accident, blood dribbles forth and she turns her head so it can't catch her face.

Tori kicks the man off her and Christina can hear the crunch of his ribs against her boot as he gets thrown sideways, but the man scrambles reaching at her without even caring about his injury. Her pulse begins to race and a strong hand hauls her up she doesn't even have time to really breathe. "Chris we need to get the fuck out of here."

There isn't even a momentary thought for the newly Dauntless girl, she can't think straight just yet, the haze of her mind just barely catching up with her body. Even in a fear simulation these. . .Things, it's not even comprehend-able. There is no way a human mind could conjure up something like this, let alone to have a fear of it.

"What's going on?" Christina asks, not taking her eyes off the elderly Abnegation man crawling in jerky movements over the grass, clawing at her boots. He's missing a leg, she can see the white of bone protruding from the nub of his thigh. This mans mouth is almost torn completely open at the sides his jaw hangs loosely and instead of biting he tilts his head back and forth.

"Oh-god." She says as a burning feeling rises up her throat from the pit of her stomach. She clamps a hand over her mouth but too late and the retch shakes her entire body as the hot liquid bile comes pouring out, filling her palm, spilling through her fingers onto the grass not far from where the dead man lay continuously crawling.

Everything she ate the night before comes out and Tori hisses at her before gripping her shoulder and shoving her in a direction, any direction as long as they get moving and get the hell out of there. Christina stumbles and whips her hand to the side, slinging the chunks off her hand.

 _How did we get here? This is Abnegation._ Christina thinks to herself as she follows Tori's waif-like form between the buildings, wiping her mouth on her jacket sleeve. They are on the edge of Abnegation, farther away from the truly abhorrent destruction and chaos but she can hear the screams not too far away. "Tori, where is Will?" Christina asks, panicked before spitting several times.

She stops and turns around frantically trying to look around and what she sees is a horrible sight to behold. A Dauntless girl, no- it's Mia someone she'd known, her head hangs loosely as though her neck is broken and she scuttles over the grass on her arms and legs spider like but one of her legs drags uselessly behind, broken and twisted at an odd angle.

A loud blast not far from them distracts it, as if drawn and more interested by noise and it turns in a different direction, completely deterred from her path towards Christina and a good thing too, because Christina stood there paralyzed by fear at the scene unable to move at all. _What the fuck is going on? Are they dead?_

She opens her mouth to yell for Will, she can't leave without him, she turns around to ask Tori to help her find will but Tori is _gone_. She whips her head around frantically looking for Tori or for Will or _anyone_ that isn't bloodied or moving in strange jerky and or lethargic movements. Anyone that isn't creepy, dead eyed, and. . .Dead.

Christina shuts her eyes tightly trying to drown out the sounds around her, the scents, the horrible stench, the images of what she's _just_ seen. _I'm still asleep, this is just a horrible dream_ , she thinks to herself. _I'm going to wake back up in my piece of shit cot in the Dauntless sleeping quarters. Then I'm going to get up and go to breakfast with Will. Fuck, we'll eat muffins. Raisins. I hate raisins. But i'll eat them._

When she opens her eyes everything is the _same_. She opens her mouth and screams loud and long till she has no breath left inside of her, till her body strains and her neck stretches, her veins about to pop and her eyes bulging out.

Dozens of milky white pupils jerk in her direction hungrily snarling and snapping their jaws, tilting their heads up as if they can smell her. They moan and shake, driven only by hunger, thirst, the instinctual desire and right now, they want to sink their teeth into Christina's swirly mocha skin and tear away at her flesh till there's nothing but bone.

* * *

 **\\\Tori/**

When Tori hears the scream at first she doesn't want to turn back. She wants to ignore the fact that she knew Christina had stopped walking, ignore that she didn't hear the sound of her boots clomping over the grass on her heels. _It would be so easy._ Tori could just break into a sprint and pretend like she didn't hear it. She already saw what was happening.

She didn't have to understand what was going on, she just needed to distance herself from all of it. She could run in the direction of the train tracks, anyone smart enough would. Anyone smart or with an inkling of common sense would run. Keep running until they were safe. Instinct. Self preservation.

Tori stops and rocks back on her heels. _I can't leave her. I can't leave her._ She spins on her heel and trudges quickly back over the distance she traveled and turns the corner of the plain square Abnegation abode. Christina stands still, motionless as about 5 or more of what _used_ to be people begin descending upon her. They reach out hungrily clawing the air, or drag themselves over the ground leaving a trail of mess over the grass.

Tori ignores the forms, sure that she'd recognize any of them if they were in black, and grasps Christina by the hair, wrapping a fist full of the short brown locks around her knuckles. She knows she didn't have to, she could've grabbed her hand, or her wrist or fuck, even her arm but she wanted Christina to know that she was going to _drag_ her away, it didn't matter how.

Christina lets out a low garbled scream as if she thought she were grabbed by one of them and Tori pulls her head back, turning her head around to see that Christina is sputtering, tears stream down her face and her lip is trembling. As soon as Christina sees its her she sucks in a sharp breath.

 _We're Dauntless._ Tori thinks and nearly snarls and slaps the girl in the face but then she thinks, no one, absolutely no one couldn't be prevailed upon to shit their pants at this sight. There is not a person in the fence that could look upon this and not think the world cracked open right under Abnegation and hell came crawling out from the depths of the gray life-less monochrome.

As if Stiff's weren't already so stiff.

She drags Christina behind her and at first she thinks the girl won't go, but soon enough she begins to follow without being pulled along so Tori releases her. Together they cross over open spaces behind some of the houses back in the direction she's sure they came from. _If we came by train, then we must have come from this direction_. Tori thinks to herself. _The fuck are we doing here anyway?_

"I need to find Will." Christina's voice comes solid and stern, like she's going to go find Will, with or without Tori's help. Tori bristles at the thought of leaving the girl alone, and she knew alone wasn't the right word but it was what she thought because she wasn't sure through all that chaos if _anyone_ was normal. At first she didn't think Christina was normal because she just stood there for a while and the creatures shambled around her.

Tori shakes her head to dispel the images and tune out the shrill shrieking just behind the houses. It's still a little dark out so Tori think's it might be early morning, because the sky is only just beginning to lighten. "You can't. If most of Dauntless become like. . .That. Who will protect the rest of the city? We have to get somewhere safe, re-group, then we can try to figure out what the fuck happened and maybe work out a way to get everything under control."

"But-"

"But fucking nothing Christina. Didn't you see that shit? Will is a man." Tori says towering over the small form of Christina, she gets right into her face, and she realizes that she's being far too mean but compared to what those things would do to her, this might as well be a marriage proposal. "If we die here, then we die in vain. If we die and become like that, then for all you know- look, we get to the tracks. . .And then we head. . ."

Christina doesn't argue, she just glares at Tori. She thinks for a good long moment staring into the girls hard brown eyes, before gripping Christina by the jacket collar, hoisting her near a building. She's not sorry, she's saving this girls life. In the back of her mind she hopes more of them get somewhere safe, she even hopes most of Abnegation got away.

They could go back to Dauntless, or they could ride to Amity where no doubt, refugees will be seeking shelter because they'd be welcome, but with how open it is, with only soft white picket fences whatever these things are could just overrun the place and Amity peace shitters would be up to their asses in biting scratching creatures trying to give them flowers or drugged bread.

They could go to Candor, the merciless mart, that place is bunker-ed down and they have a storage of weapons somewhere, they even have jail cells. She's not sure what the jail cells would be good for but her mind pictured they'd be good for something.

Candor is the closest by train and the best bet, Tori decides. "We're going to Candor."

* * *

 **Any questions send me a pm! I'll try to get back at you asap.**


	2. No No No

**Thanks for reading :) reviews are greatly appreciated. Let me know what you think, I might be prevailed upon to take requests on characters. . .Or deaths *wink wink***

 **I like to write in a narrative way and sometimes overly descriptive or something like that at some points so please bear with me.**

 **The story will pick up and have much more dialog, as well as zombie attacks/interactions!**

 **Anyway thanks again.**

* * *

 **\\\Tris/**

"Tris." Four's voice is almost pleading as he urges her with a hand to her shoulder. He wants her to say something. Anything. But sometimes there's just nothing to say. Not even a sound you can make. And sometimes that should be enough.

She bites the inside of her cheek and shuts her eyes trying to drown out the sounds of low dull moaning and the sounds of slick slapping hands and scraping nails as the dead below pat and claw endlessly at the concrete square of a building, in what would be their attempt at climbing it.

Occasionally she'll hear the shuffle or crash of furniture through the window just below them, and at one point one of them paws out the window too far and falls with a sickening crack as it's body hits the ground only one story but even then, it crawls around on useless legs bent with bone splintered out, making red streaks on the already sodden grass.

All around she can see the evidence of a harrowing gruesome scene, red hand prints, trails on the houses, lifeless decimated bodies littering the ground. Entrails and dark mass splattered over the once neat and tidy kept Abnegation lawns like red flowers.

Abnegation. Where she spent her 15 years until choosing day. Looking into a mirror for 30 seconds, tying her hair into a tidy bun, dressing in that plain gray dress. Everyday walking through this area, her home. Her ex-faction. With her father. Her brother. Her. . .

Faction before blood. What a trivial thing when blood is everywhere and a faction gone. An entire faction almost reduced to nothing but blood on the houses they once inhabitted. Like finger paintings, hieroglyphs that tell of their bleak lives. Only one color of paint with too many dark shades.

The dead meander through the area, selfish in their pursuit to assuage their never ending hunger. There has never been a more selfish creature to ever walk on Abnegation ground. They want to fill their noses and gaping mouths with the living, tearing at them until minutes after they've drawn their last breath.

It's as if they created a new faction. The faction of the dead.

 _It's been about an hour_ , Tris judges as the sun is already up bearing down on the houses with a relentless morning heat, baking them and the rotting corpses. An hour since they climbed out Four's window and onto his roof that is.

She watches as Four motions to another group, waving his jacket like a black flag over his head. It looks to be Uriah, and several other Dauntless. She squints her eyes to see on an adjacent roof are some Abnegation, their gray clothing bloodied, one by one they wave back signaling that they are hanging in there.

 _That's my house_. Tris thinks passingly, as her eyes fall onto an identical gray square. _All this time I lived only a few houses and a row away from Tobias._ But the thought is just a distraction.

It seems like only yesterday to her, when she worried about what faction she would choose. If she would spend the rest of her life regretting not taking her chance to leave or spend the rest of her life wishing she never did. But here she is. Back in Abnegation. Stuck on a roof.

She still can't wrap her mind, her heart, around the realization that these things might not be people anymore, but she knew that even then it wouldn't make killing them any easier. She suddenly thinks about when she shot Eric in the foot and a coldness starts in her gut.

She wasn't sure why she would feel guilt if Eric might have died because of that. She wanted to blame him for all of this. And yet, she doubts that even Erudite expected or wrought all of this. She couldn't bring herself to kill Eric but now, standing motionless on the roof, hearing the sickening noises of groans and slobbering.

She feels that she might have resigned him to a _worse_ fate. She shakes the thought out of her head but can't bring herself to look down, in case she might see his angry sullen face peering up at her. Sure, he looks angry most of the time. But it wouldn't be like this. No, nothing like this.

The bullet wound to her shoulder tingles, it had gone all the way through and had long since stopped bleeding. U _nless,_ she thinks. _I just can't feel it anymore_. This entire event is one big shock to her system. Her body a faraway vessel and her mind so inward it feels far too small to fill the vast empty space.

Her shirt and jacket is crusted over and stiff, plastered against her skin from sweat and dried blood cracking away like old scabs when she moves. She can't deny the numbing feeling tingling down her arm, to her fingertips.

She feels an almost lethargic sleep falling over her, possibly the blood-loss or the lack of sleep from the night before. Even just those few hours of fitful sleep, not enough, but far more than she thinks she will ever sleep again.

When Four calls out to her once more she holds her hand up. _Not yet. Not now_. She thinks to herself, she's being selfish because, she knows _he needs it_. To hear her voice over all this incoherent noise. _I'm not ready._

She fears, the very moment she _says_ something the world will shatter. That _she_ will shatter and be unable to put herself back together in time before something else happens. There is not a glass to tap and break and stop her from drowning right now. No way for her to manipulate her surroundings.

 _This is not a simulation_. She thinks. But she's barely keeping herself from going under. _What good is being a Divergent if you have no awareness of even the reality around you? This can't possibly be real._

A crack and a pop of a stray gunshot still sounds out, ringing in her ears like a gong, as Dauntless attempt to thin the undead numbers but, to Tris it seems almost no amount of bullets effect them, they just keep going.

 _Except for the woman Tobias had shot in the head on the stairs. There is probably no other way._ She knows because- _no. No. No._ She can't bear to think of the thought, she shakes her head back and forth but the thoughts start clawing their way around her skull.

 _Not yet. Please not yet_. She begs her mind over and over.

She tilts her face up to the sky, the impossibly blue sky, as the tears stream down her face blurring her vision and she sucks in a deep sharp breath, the only sound she's made, a hollow hoarse sob ripping through her very core. _I can't, please, please, please I can't._

* * *

 ** _\\\_ Jeanine _/_**

 _"_ Have everyone available go over the footage. Anyone not performing first aid or doing fortifications." Jeanine commands in an almost soft and breathy voice through the intercom. Her bony pale finger with blood under her nail pressed firmly over the button. "Figure out everything you can about them, anything noteworthy. Movement, behavior, patterns,-" _We'll figure it out._ "Try to identify the very _firs_ t one. Ways to put them down. . .Everything."

 _Whatever has happened to those people, there is an explanation and then we can fix it_. That's what Erudite do. They are presented with a problem, they study it, and then they remedy it. It's what Jeanine has done her whole life. Building the city and her faction to her image.

"Have someone do a check on how many are missing, unaccounted for. . ." Jeanine adds afterwards. "An estimation on the population effected. . .What area. . ."

 _We need a sample_. She thinks, _we also need to test my serum again to clear any doubts within Erudite._ She can see their wary glances through the glass walls, behind their spectacles. Begging for confirmation that whatever happened was not the fault of their faction, their faces hollow and sullen, fear filled eyes.

 _We need to get our hands on one. Perform an autopsy. Blood tests, brain scans. . .We need to test air samples, water, food, even non-contaminated people._ Suddenly she feels that everything around her needs to be tested. _Is anything safe? Is it a disease?_

Jeanine takes a seat at her desk blankly scratching at the bits of dried blood crusted over her elbow and down to her wrist. She can feel the stiffness of her legs as a layer of mud dries, caked onto her heels and ankles. She can see the trail she brought into her office and pauses a moment before kicking her shoes off under the desk.

They are far from Abnegation now. You can't see it from this distance, not even on the top floor of the Erudite building but, she doesn't look out her glass windows. Shatter proof. Made to withstand storms, hurricanes and now - possibly the dead. Nothing can get in or out depending on whether they wanted to trap or deter.

 _We're safe_. Jeanine thinks to herself. Erudite is a fortress, on lock-down. Dozens of loyal Dauntless and Erudite barricade the doors, entrances and add support against the glass but, really, it's because they don't want to _see_ through it, they don't want to see what's outside in case it comes this far.

They pile high, bookcases, tables, chairs. Higher. Erudite now stands the most protected faction. _Impenetrable_. Almost _inescapable_.

The underground levels are dedicated to running electricity throughout most of the city, the ground and lower levels hold Erudite's vast library. The middle levels are the recreational, housing, work, medical, study and classroom areas, the top most floors dedicated to research and development as well as the smarter, more prestige Erudite offices.

 _There is a lot between the ground floor and my office._ Jeanine thinks, and she watches blankly as Max makes hasty calls to Amity and then to Candor, screeching at Johanna and Jack when they don't _believe_ him _. How could they?_

He warns them and yet, he almost hopes it finds them out in the open fields or across the collapsible bridge but, it's only the anger and grief consuming him, driving him to his limit. His faction. . .His faction.

They have a protocol, in cases of extreme disasters and situations. But at what point could they really be prepared for something like this? A tornado? Sure. A blizzard? Definitely _._ Jeanine ponders. _This is no natural disaster_.

Protocols are meant to protect people. Rules set in place for you to follow when you aren't thinking clearly. Dauntless are meant to stay calm and level headed in times of extreme stress. If they aren't how will the other factions depend on them?

Jeanine watches him for a moment, using his hands frantically. His face enraged, as he orders a group of Dauntless. Pointing, yelling, she can't hear him from this side of the see-through wall and she doesn't try to read his lips.

For a still moment it's as though it's a _regular_ day, Jeanine sits at her desk awaiting her morning coffee, and then she'll go over a list to approve or decline permits or look over the different facilities and usage in Erudite.

She almost believes none of the events happened. Convinced that it was a trick of the mind. _The mind is a very vast and widely unknown thing, capable of so much, untapped potential. Limitless_. She shakes her head in an attempt to focus her thoughts to her current task but they cycle and cycle through until they blend like a white noise.

The air conditioning does nothing to help the sweat she feels over her skin. The faint trembling in her heavy limbs. She's not cold but her body is reacting as though it is. Fear. Cold harsh fear. A throb of pain shoots through her arm and she squeezes it tightly to her chest, intensifying the pain with pressure, she grits her perfect teeth and bears it.

When a stray Erudite approaches with first aid and medical supplies, she waves him away without a word and then she calls up the screens, clacking away loudly at the keyboard blinking over the flat surface of her desk and she forces herself to watch. Every screen. Every angle. Unblinking, taking notes furiously, her dry eyes tearing in the corners.

She swallows through the tightness in her throat, smeared lips-ticked lips trembling and she breathes slowly through her mouth, trying to force the appearance of calm and collected. She scratches at the gashes down her forearm, pushing fresh and dried blood further under her neatly manicured nails.

 _It can't be the serum, it's not my fault. It's not Erudite_. _. . . that can't explain why an Abnegation would be susceptible, as they were never inoculated. . ._ _We'll blame the Divergent._ Jeanine thinks suddenly. The thought settles. Inside her head, nestling, locking into place, the perfect excuse, deniability. Assure the rest of Erudite.

But she knows, deep down. _It's not the Divergent. It never was._

* * *

 ** _\\\_ Eric/**

Eric shoves past Erudite scrambling around him between the tightly packed cubicles sending some crashing into desks out of his way. Scenes of what happened in Abnegation playing out all around him some in slow motion others too fast to follow. The sounds muted through headphones but he can still hear them in the back of his mind.

With his foot already taken care of, he had nothing to distract him. He has an urge. He couldn't deny it. He sauntered back and forth on his throbbing foot, having turned down all painkillers. He curled and un-curled his fists, cracking his knuckles like the sounds of snapping bones.

It was a conviction or maybe a basic human reaction, a _need_ to go back. They drove _away_ and he could see his fellow Dauntless trapped on roofs staring after the armored vehicles wide eyed, accusing. _Pleading_. Like a dog left in he rain by it's owners. Cold. Abandoned. Afraid.

He knows the feeling. He knows it so well. He can't even imagine the crushing defeat of hopelessness, watching as they drove away one by one. Possibly their only hope of escape. Survival. He'd _left_ them but he didn't understand quite, why he even cared.

Max made valid points, establishing a safe zone, reestablishing a government, activating the early warning system for a lock down of all remaining factions, finding out what they're up against, taking precaution with a rescue and suitable plan of action to be taken not far behind.

 _"We'll come back for them."_ Max said. _"At least the ones that survive_. _If we try to save them now and die, then they will die anyway. We should do what we can to protect those that have yet to be effected."_

 _Why should I care?_ Eric thought forcefully, willing himself to stop. _We basically turned them into mindless drones, and they ended up actually becoming mindless. ._. He couldn't stop the gnawing in his gut, as though the very images on the screens were taking place inside him. The feeling of nails scraping at the soft flesh of his stomach lining, trying to claw it's way out of his abdomen, chewing on his large intestine.

His mind shot to an idle lingering thought, like a shadow in a corner only being cast by the demented chomping, licking figures occupying his skull behind his eyelids. Appearing at every blink like a picture show.

Of how Tris shot him in the foot, _unable_ to kill him and he pictures the look on her face, the moment of hesitance and contemplation to assist him even though it was she who pulled the trigger. She turned back. He wasn't sure exactly if it was if he was comparing himself to her.

He thought then, standing in the middle of the frantically working Erudite that, _maybe it was the Divergent._ _Maybe the disease causes them to reanimate after death._ They _had_ thought that Abnegation would have a large number of fugitive Divergent hidden within their meager population.

 _But no, they've killed Divergent before in testing. This never happened before. Then what is it?_ He stared hard at the dirtied Erudite ground, breathing heavily. _I can't just fucking stay here and wait for Erudite to figure this out._ Eric thought shaking his head to dispel the speculative wondering. I _can drive back down there, plow through those fucking things. ._.

All thoughts on those creatures being human, even once human, were cast out of his mind the moment that _thing_ pressed it's face up against the glass. Eric didn't want to admit that a part of him, deep down, beneath the urge to eradicate and destroy them all, that he wanted to preserve. It's why he went to such extremes. _If there's nothing left afterwards then what was the fucking point?_

He spies two figures huddled over the flailing body of what used to be a woman and he stalks up to the console. She's wearing black. . .Dauntless. he can see on the screen, over the shoulder of a violently trembling Erudite, sobbing all over her keyboard. The wet sounds of slobber and sniffling, sharp sobs racking her small form.

He swears that if she shook any harder he would be able to feel the vibrations. Of course he didn't realize he was shaking too. He'd never admit it, not to a goddamn soul let alone his own. There he stood though, his fists clenched so tight, the blue veins bulged out of his biceps like they could pop. Shaking in his boots with what could be rage. Sometimes rage comes from fear.

 _What a shitty way to go_ , Eric thought as he couldn't bring himself to look away from them gnawing, ripping, tearing at the flesh and open abdomen of what he's sure used to be _Lauren_. Those things splaying her wide over the grass, a gash, crimson trench, feasting on her viscera.

Her streaked purple and black hair whipping back and forth over her tear sodden cheeks. As if shaking her head, saying no. No. _No_. But her mouth caught on gurgling blood, spilling from the sides of her lips.

He couldn't look away. He couldn't. He wouldn't. Until she stops moving. But she never _really_ stops moving.

* * *

 **\\\Christina/**

She presses herself close to the ground on the roof of a 12 story building overlooking Abnegation. The gravel cutting through the fabric of her shirt and her bare arms as she lays prone, peering through the scope of her gun.

"We have to go back." She needed to go back, but equally as strong as her conviction to save the others, was the fear of going alone. Fear is an all consuming emotion.

Tori paces the roof beside her, kicking up gravel and dust, Christina coughs, inhaling it all in hyperventilating gasps. She turns to judge Tori's expression. It's forlorn and torn, occasionally twisting into an angular grimace, and she watches as Tori pulls at her black hair as though she can tear images out of her head, right through her scalp.

There are about 16 others on the roof, inspecting injuries or in a position similar to Christina's peering through their guns at the comrades they left behind.

They barricaded the roof door even though the dead that had pursued them were extremely slow and you can still see them in the alleys below, dragging slowly not yet reached the building they now occupied.

 _How far would they follow?_

Christina looks through her scope once more and she's sure she's staring straight at Four, waving his jacket like a flag and Tris motionless, a statue. Her shoulders drooping. But Christina's vision is blurry, she blames it on the scope. Pulling it back under her arm to use her shirt to wipe furiously at the lenses before looking through it again. It's not as blurry but she can no longer blame it on the spotless scope.

No Will. Nowhere in sight. _Where are you Will?_

"No, no, fucking Uriah." Yearns Zeke directly next to her on the ground. He bites down into his jacket sleeve and shuts his eyes tightly. Tears escape out the corners and his face becomes red like he's holding in an explosive scream, too much to contain. "My baby brother." He chokes out a strangled sob. "My-"

Christina reaches out to him, stopping before she makes the connection. _What could she say?_ Touching him won't help, in fact touching him, reaching for him might freak him out considering the situation.

She pushes herself off the ground slinging her gun across her chest and starts patting the gravel off her clothing, turning to Tori awaiting some kind of instruction or guidance. It was like an instinct, turn to the oldest or the one that brought her out of there.

"Ammo count? Any explosives? A walkie?" Tori asks before checking her own gun, she clicks it open, glancing quickly before snapping it back up.

Christina does the same and even though she knows she didn't fire the weapon, there are several bullets gone. _I fired it. Unconsciously_. She thinks grimly. She ignores the crushing weight and desire to know who she'd shot and begins to open the pockets of her jacket where it seems ammo has been stored. _We unconsciously prepared ourselves for war._ Almost every pocket with a spare magazine for the gun she holds.

Dauntless call over to Tori how many rounds they have left and everyone has their combat knives but, no one admits that they don't want to get close enough to use them.

Christina tries to listen, strains her ears to follow every word as Tori argues with another Dauntless on how to dispatch them. He claims he saw with his own eyes that they only stop when you destroy the brain or head, a head shot would take anyone down. Dead or Alive.

"We could wait for back up." Speaks up another Dauntless. "No doubt Amity and Candor have been alerted. They wouldn't turn a blind eye." Murmurs of agreement start as everyone seems fine with waiting indefinitely for help that may or may not even arrive.

"What about the faction-less?" An Abnegation chimes, her little voice is hopeful. Christina wonders what the faction-less could possibly do. _Where were they when Abnegation first got attacked?_

The faction-less could give two shits about the factions or the fall of factions, they were waiting for it. That is, the _actual_ fall, not rising up afterwards. They are just as abandoned as the dead, just as vengeful.

"Anyone have an accurate count on the number of hostiles?" Tori asks and it's as though she's assumed the mantle of leading the survivors. No one else seems capable, no one else willing to pick up such a responsibility. The heavy weight of having people rely on you, putting their lives and deaths in your hands.

She questions silently the resolve behind Tori's blazing eyes. The wild way her hair sticks around. She thinks she might look just as startled, if not worse but she can't deny the connections formed between Tori and the others, having tattooed the skin of almost every Dauntless, the conversations shared, bonding through needles and ink. That very skin being torn to shreds, ink and all.

Christina shakes her head to dispel the thoughts, feeling like she can almost imagine it. She takes a deep breath and tries to think of how many of the dead she saw. _Too many._

No one knows how many and the number grows. No one knows what really triggers the change, if its contagious, or if it's just death. So many missing and unaccounted for and so many unwilling to scan the bloodied faces for fear of finding them among the moving dead.

They can only guess what will happen when they die themselves. No one really knows. Everyone is afraid. Everyone uncertain. She can see it in their expressions.

She holds a hand over her eyes to shield the harsh sunlight as she looks back over Abnegation, plumes of black thick smoke curl up into the air, she's unsure if it was created as a signal or by the lone spark of an explosive. She doesn't need a scope to see the scores of figures swaying, wandering, crawling away from the rows of symmetrical concrete blocks into the shadows of the city.

 _Will_. She thinks. _Will._ She pleads with everything she is, projecting herself out of her body as though she's searching for him through the broken glass and hollow buildings, screaming through the empty spaces. _Please, please be oka_ y.

But deep down, she hopes that if he's died, that she won't see him again and that he won't see her again. If she does. . .She might not have it in her to stop him from tearing into her flesh, ripping her apart till shes a bloody mess of bones and un-sewn meat.

With the lips he used to kiss her goodnight not even 24 hours ago. With the hands he used to hold hers, cup her cheek, playfully punch her, pinch her, hug her. Those strong hands that lifted her and twirled her around when they finally became Dauntless.

She would let him. Oh, she would let him. She knows.

 _Maybe he wouldn't though_. She thinks hopefully a small spark in the darkness of her head, making her heart race a little bit faster, lifting the heaviness off her limbs. That small fire rekindling at the thought of seeing him again, his crooked boyish grin and tousled dark brown locks, and his sultry half-lidded gaze. _Maybe he wouldn't_.

He would. Oh, he would.

* * *

 **\\\Peter/**

Peter sprints towards the exit of the cafeteria, holding his rifle in one hand using his other to propel himself over the benches and tables. Gunfire continued to ring through the air around him, pinging and ricocheting off the concrete walls. Directly ahead of him a wall of benches and tables used as a barricade, he swiftly steps over the metal underside and clambers over landing hard on his back aiming in case he was followed.

A Dauntless hauls him to his feet within seconds, the strong hands under his arms and then shoves him towards the tunnel without a word before perching back with his head just over the barricade and his gun aimed, resting the barrel against the stable top.'

He has no idea whats going on. No one told him anything. His heart is pounding in his ears. All of a sudden there was gunfire screaming and the alarms went off, shrill and loud in his ears resounding through every corner of Dauntless. Emergency lights glowed at regular intervals, bathing dark tunnels in an eerie red glow.

Just as Peter turned to leave a scream whipped him around, almost 4 Dauntless, un-armed leap over the barricade but he didn't expect the others to fire into them.

He watched wide eyed as one of the milky-eyed Dauntless caught with his stomach over the benches claws over reaching for the four of them. The nearest Dauntless jams his riffle barrel into it's gaping mouth and fires once.

The sheer force nearly takes off the things head. The spray of crimson pelts him and Peter is unblinking as time slows down. Brains, blood and skull fragments exploding into a red mist as the body droops like clothes on a line.

He wipes his cheek blankly, blinking for the first time in what seems like forever and notices the slickness and thick liquid on his palm and fingertips.

 _What in the actual fuck?_ Peter thinks. _What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck._ The gunshot was so close that a ringing in his ears makes it impossible to tell if it's the siren or the after effects of shattered eardrums recovering slowly.

He can barely hear his own thoughts or feel his own body. He almost thinks he's in a dream, a nightmare.

He doesn't see what's happening with the second dead that jumped over because the third one crashes into him, sending them tumbling to the ground.

Peter slams onto his back, struggling, using his gun as a bar, looking up at it while it screeches at him, blood and clear saliva pouring from his mouth and onto Peter's chin, sliding down his neck.

"Fucking gross." Peter screams. "Dumb motherfucker." He slams the butt of his gun into the side of its head, doing little to dissuade it as it chomps hungrily at him, swinging wildly, one of it's hands with dirty crusted fingernails digs into the side of Peters head, down his cheek and scalp and he feels the pain instantly.

He slams the gun upward hearing the crack as it connects with the it's nose, smashing it straight into it's skull and it doesn't even phase it. He reaches down feeling frantically for his boot, just as the creature clamps it's teeth over the barrel of the gun not even an inch from his fingers.

He grips the combat knife and thrusts it directly into the side of it's head, shoving straight through bone, causing it to instantly droop. Limp.

He shoves it off him with his gun, panting, wiping his face again with the back of his arm. He's covered in the filth the spit, and blood.

He doesn't even bother retrieving the knife protruding out of the deads skull, he doesn't even check to see if the other Dauntless has subdued their attacker. Peter turns and lifts his gun and runs straight down the tunnel and around the corner.

His breathing becomes labored and his legs feel numb as they fly across the concrete. He wasn't sure where he was going because his mind was in a haze, but the only indication of his location is a sign up ahead with an arrow that points left, reading CONTROL ROOM.

He swings a tight left raising his gun, walking sideways, boot to boot, until he sees all the way down the length. _Clear_. He doesn't turn around for fear of being chased. The hair on the back of his neck raised.

Peter sprints towards the open door not bothering to check if the room is occupied. It is. Two people spin in their chairs wide eyed as they take in Peter's bloodied face.

"I'm good." He says instantly as they both stand, he drops his gun to his side and raises his hands in surrender. _I'm good. Whatever the fuck good means._ He doesn't feel good.

"Shut the fucking door." The older graying haired Dauntless commands and Peter instantly turns grasping the large metal sliding door, his slippery fingers slide a bit and he readjusts his grip to drag it closed. The resistance of the rusted metal largely in part to how they never close the door.

As soon as it's closed he slinks down with his back against it, and the younger male Dauntless pulls a creaking metal handle down to latch it. Lock it. Locking them inside and everything else out.

Peter thinks for a moment, if he's really safe in here. He should've tried to find an exit. Ran anywhere else. Instead he's in a small dark room with dozens of surveillance screens with two Dauntless he doesn't recall ever meeting.

 _This fucking sucks._ He thinks grimly, catching his breath. He wipes his hands on his pants before running one through his hair and he finds that it's matted down.

His hand starts shaking as he pulls it in front of him, a thick chunk of meat stuck between his fingers.

He gags, retching before slinging it off, it smacks against the ground with a wet slapping sound like dropping meatloaf on the kitchen linoleum floor. He turns onto his hands and knees, oblivious to everything around him as he gets tunneled vision and his mouth fills with saliva. Gagging, dry heaving.

"Stand up." The older Dauntless commands. Peter can't. "Stand up boy." He says firmly. Peter shakes his head NO and swallows thickly. "Are you injured?"

"We need to check you." The younger Dauntless voice is deep, he's clearly older than Peter. A hulking guy with dark brown hair. The man eyes Peter warily.

He thinks for a moment _. Check me for what?_

"Check me?" Peter asks, his voice comes out hoarse and raspy. He turns his head but instead of looking at the two men he focuses past them.

"Oh my fucking-" He gasps loudly. On the screen, on several of them, different angles focused all on the same thing. The loading docks outside Dauntless as 3 buses filled with Dauntless civilians, children. Women. Evacuating. _Trying_ to evacuate.

Peter retches again and this time everything he ate, everything he _ever_ ate, he thinks in his entire life, comes rising up from his gut spilling into a pool of unidentifiable pale chunks all over the concrete ground in front of him.

His lungs, his stomach, everything flipped inside out right out of his mouth. His vision flickers in and out of darkness and he falls sideways, his face landing hard on his cheek.

The room spins till it fades completely out and he doesn't even give a shit that he's laying in his own vomit.

* * *

 **So I was writing and listening to music and all of a sudden SELENA GOMEZ and her song HANDS TO MYSELF starts playing and I can't help but laugh because literally if you're thinking about zombies.**

 **The song is like all about zombies. Or maybe that's just me. . .**

 **Let me know what you think. :D Read, review, follow, favorite, it all brightens my day.**


	3. Sorry Not Sorry

**I really appreciate the reviews :D**

 **I'll try to update frequently, I have the story in my mind, almost all of it, it's just getting it to flow the right way and incorporating the characters I want into it that takes a lot of my time.**

 **The story is rated M for mature, it contains violence and gore, as well as strong language.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the Divergent characters/actors in the books/movies. I just appreciate them and love them.**

 **I don't own zombies either and although it's not a completely original idea** **[** _yeah zombie apocalypse, it's been done many times_ **] it's just a fanfic for enjoyment, so I hope you enjoy it :D**

 **. . .**

* * *

 **\\\Four/**

He shields his eyes from the glare of the summer sun, not a cloud in sight to offer brief shade. Tris hasn't said a word in over 3 hours, she just sist vacantly, un-moving, except for the strands of hair disturbed by a faint scarce breeze, her eyes set far of into the distant city.

He stopped trying to get her to talk but his ears strain and twitch as if awaiting her soft voice, not wanting to miss it over the other sounds. _She'll speak when she's ready._ He told himself.

He was able partially treat her wound by wrapping a torn sleeve of his jacket around her shoulder, but for the most part he didn't touch her. He knew she needed proper medical attention soon, by the shallow way she was breathing and the faint spots of sweat that decorated her forehead.

She wasn't crying anymore but from the corner of his eye he could see her face clenched in grief and anger, it made a pressing weight build in his gut to see her so emotionally distraught.

 _What were they supposed to have done?_ He thought, shaking his head slightly to dispel the guilt. He couldn't bring himself to ask out loud. He knew there was nothing they could've done differently once this all started.

Desperation and survival severely limit ones options.

He drops down next to her on the scorching hot concrete of the roof and brings his knee to his chest, resting his arm over it. The dead below them pace back and forth, or circle around, some staring up at the roof, making strange chauffing noises like anxious animals.

After the first hour left alone with their groans, moans and shrill hollow or clicking noises he found himself pretending they were having conversations. Back and forth. About what, he wasn't sure. _Could be anything. Could be completely nothing._

It helps him to think that their sometimes low moans and clacking noises are the resounding sad regret coming from somewhere deep down. The way they hold themselves, dragging about, shuffling feet. _Most of them just seem sad_.

Four is surprised by the urgency, the _need_ to put them all out of their misery. He curls his hand into a tight fist but releases it with a breath. _It would be a kindness._ He tells himself. If he had the ammo he would, but he's also concerned over how it would effect Tris.

 _They're trying to kill us, they're trying to get you and I won't let that happen._ Four thinks to himself, it makes things a lot easier when you have only one option. For a brief moment he felt like a rope was tied around his throat squeezing tighter and tighter, he shakes his head once and the feeling is gone. _I would do anything for Tris._

He didn't want to admit that he had no affections for his former faction. _No one is really innocent, Abnegation most of all._ Now, he didn't think they deserved this, no one deserves this.

He put's a hand over his eyes, to shield from the sun once more to peer across the distance at Uriah signaling with his hand. A number. How many dead are circling the house around them. Four watches as one wanders over to a different house as though checking to see if they'll have better luck.

He counted about 12 others, alive, on the other roofs, including he and Tris, and every 20 to 30 minutes they wave like a signal. _I'm still here. Still alive. Still stuck._

He continuously scans his surroundings and listens to the noises, they've quieted down for the most but are persistent. Whenever they do get disinterested and get too close to the border of Abnegation. Four stomps his boot against the roof to make thumping noises, and cups his hands to yell, they eventually start shambling back again.

He figures they should try to keep them close so they can't go off into other parts of the city. The others seem to have the same idea because once in a while he'll hear them yelling, taunting or tapping their empty guns against the concrete.

The ones directly below them start their grotesque shrieking and reaching with blood stained hands, going from a docile state to a violent state like they're suddenly reminded that there are live beings above them. Fresh food.

He's learning things about them. _They're dead_.

One, they finally stop after having their brains mashed, shot, mangled. Two, most of them are slow and dumb, and he can't tell why, some of them are a little faster, some even run, but, not very coordinately. Three, they are attracted or alerted by sound. He's not sure if they can smell or how good their eye sight is because he can't find their pupils and they never seem to really focus on anything.

There's a rising stench in the air as the heat begins broiling the decaying bodies littering the ground and the ones still walking, and he can hardly stomach it, but by now he'd digested everything in his stomach and has nothing to spill.

He breathes from his mouth as slow and even as possible to keep the stench from overwhelming him and waves flies away unconsciously when they buzz too close to his ears or land on him. His once sweat soaked clothes are dry now, stiff and he knows he's thirsty.

He licks his dry lips, running his tongue over the tiny cracks tasting the dried salt that stings in tiny needle bursts. The bare skin of his arms, leathery and powdery after an extended amount of time out in the sun. He can only imagine how Tris is faring, with an injury.

 _We can't just stay here._ Four thinks. _Tris needs medical attention badly. . .And there is no telling how the other factions are taking this. And the faction-less. . .Evelyn._

Not even a moment after that thought Tris stirs and it catches his attention. He motions for her to lie over his lap, crossing his legs and half expects her to decline but she complies, too tired to keep sitting up. She rests the back of her head on his thigh, and he leans forward slightly to shade her from the sun. She peeks up at him from under her long lashes with her deep endless, tired, brown eyes.

They hold an unimaginable sadness. As though every single dead person is a weight on her alone. She looks away like she doesn't want Four searching around in them and he won't.

He didn't know what he could do to comfort her. Speaking is out of the question, he had no words, and just that quick glimpse made his mouth feel much dryer. Instead he very cautiously, brushes his thumb, an outline along her earlobe and along her hairline.

He stops suddenly, worried that she might not want to be touched, but he's reassured by her, turning her face further into his hand and he begins stroking the side of her cheek in slow movements back and forth. _Her skin is always so smooth._

A sharp sting of light catches his eye and he blinks twice to get rid of the circles of light that flood his vision. Again, only it stays.

He covers his eyes with a hand and squints scanning his surroundings till he sees the flash of glass or something highly reflective from a broken window on the first floor of a building about 100 yards away. A movement, a waving arm. Several.

"Tris." He jerks his head in the direction and she sits up slowly.

* * *

 **\\\Tori/**

She crouches down low in the empty room of a hollowed out building on the first floor, her knee pressed to the hard ground and her gun balanced on the sill of a broken window. Her breaths come out short and shallow, heating the side of her cheek pressed against the gun.

Zeke crouches next to her positioned the same way as she is, peering through the scope of his gun at what they can see of Abnegation.

A Dauntless is positioned at the door and another at the foot of the stairs that lead up into the deserted building where Tori had searched till she found a broken mirror in one of the abandoned communal bathrooms.

Unlike them, these Dauntless have their guns drawn looking everywhere, even the slightest sound sends them in a frenzied search for its source and Tori is a little worried that they might accidentally shoot each other.

She grips the shard of mirror and angles it towards the sun until she sees a dull square of light flash over the concrete wall of the house that Four and Tris sit on, and she pauses, sucking in a sharp breath because it lands right in front of one of the dead.

It rolls its head around, broken neck, over its shoulders and shambles on, seemingly not to care. She lets the breath out.

"Whooo, shit." She says and from next to her she could hear Zeke's relief, he almost chuckles. But that's a good sign, he 's in a much better state now, determined. Like the rest of them.

 _Leave no man behind attitude._ It won out over fear, although no one really wanted the guilt of leaving them.

To live with that regret, despair, haunted by the what if's. Sometimes it's not the dead that suffer dying, but the living. Having to live with those memories of when you were given a choice, where your actions could have helped your comrades, or when your actions get them killed.

Where either way, not doing anything felt worse.

Even if you lose your memory your imagination haunts you, as deep down in your sub conscious mind you know who _you_ are, who _you_ were, especially in those moments, cause that's what's left, what _you_ have to live with.

Tori knows, and she's ashamed by how easily it would be for her to just leave. She doesn't owe them anything, she hated Dauntless for what happened to her brother. George. Killed for being a Divergent, but a bigger part of her still felt a hope for the rest.

She wiggles the light around until it flashes over Fours right eye, because he sits facing a group about 4 houses away. The first time garnered little reaction and she loses the beam of light, hurriedly she angles it over the house again and flashes it over Four once more, keeping it there until he shields his face from it and then peers in their vicinity.

 _Fina-fucking-ly,_ Tori thought _. Uhm. . . Fucking shit._ She wasn't sure how they could communicate but, she wanted to get his attention. Possibly let him know they were going to try and get them out of there.

She stands up, out of concealment, not worried about being seen by the dead and waves her arm over her head.

Zeke does the same and the other groups spread in two adjoining buildings do also, as if thinking _'it's okay if Tori did it_ '. She notices as Four's eyes flick over them, his expression never changing, just stern as usual. Stiff.

In the back of her mind she wonders just how shitty it must be to sit on that roof with all those things just circling, like a pack of rabid dogs waiting for a bone to chew on.

They've been there for some time, while Tori and the others worked to formulate some sort of grand plan that would allow those trapped to escape their situation.

She notices Tris stand, shielding their eyes and Tori takes her position again, peering through the scope to watch as Four starts making hand motions, watching intently as first he points to himself, then to the other roofs and holds both his hands up with all fingers extended and palm out. 10. Then he closes both hands and opens one, with only 2 fingers. _12 of them_.

Tori nods her head slowly to no one in particular but herself. _12 added to our 18 hopefully would bring us up to an even 30, if they were counting themselves_. Tori added up the people in her mind. She and 3 others were concealed in this building, 2 in the next and then 2 in the one beside that. The rest about a mile away, split between two.

She refocuses as Four points down to one of the dead and she waits in anticipation and dread to see how many fingers he'll hold. Her heart beats excruciatingly slow, and she wipes her sweaty hand on the side of her pants.

Surprise blossoms through her consciousness when Four yells out over the rooftops, like he doesn't care if the dead hear him. Tris doesn't seem bothered by it either, she stands squinting her eyes against the sun with her hands on her hips, surveying the others.

The dead become restless at the noise, stopping to claw at the concrete. Chomping their jowls into the air. She sees the dark dried streaks on the walls, dried blood, and peers through her scope once more even though she knows she shouldn't.

Their fingers nothing but bone now, and yet they continue, grating it against the wall like sandpaper. She swallows the lump in her throat and shakes her head, breathing slowly out of her nose.

She thinks about, instead, if the dead even know what they're saying, or if they understand his hand signs, _it would complicate things_. But then she imagines herself flipping them off. _They're dead. Fuck them. If they were even a little intelligent they probably would have noticed the direction he was making them._

She breathes out, tilting her head back and to the side to grin at Zeke, it's more of an encouraging grin because she doesn't feel very confident herself. The expression on his face mirrors hers, a slight grin only a little less prominent. _They're dumb. Dead and dumb._ She has to admit, it's a _little_ reassuring.

"24!" Four's voice rings out over the distance, through his cupped hands to amplify the sound. Their momentary relief turns to absolute horror, her jaw drops open and the grip on her gun tightens exponentially _. 24?! That many?_

Tori rushes through every scenario in her head. Split between the 8 of them, not taking into account those on the roof, assuming they are out of ammo. They would need to take out 3 each. _Head shots_ , her gun has about 4 shots and her semi-automatic pistol has a full 12, it _can_ be done.

 _But fuck. I haven't shot a gun in a while. . .At least not consciously and especially moving targets. . ._ _Worst case scenario, they get scared, miss, run out of ammo, get attacked and we all get killed._ Tori weighs, tilting her head back and forth thoughtfully. She takes a breather.

They can fall back and lead them into the alley where the others are positioned, a funnel technique. Luring the dead down the alley where they'll try to take care of the rest more or less. Tori nods her head to herself again. They have some semblance of a plan, assuming some things, guessing others.

 _Not a complete issue. . .The others are all in position. And if we fail. . .well we fucking fail. At least we tried._ She tries to dismiss the small thought saying she could always run.

Tris waves her hands and points to one of the dead and then points to the house. Her expression forlorn and Four hangs his head guiltily, running his hands over his face.

"Fucking shit." Tori sighs, gritting her teeth, her shoulders drop and her gut tightens, a rippling tremble crawls up her spine. _Of fucking course._

"There are some inside the houses too, huh?" Zeke asks.

The dire circumstances were becoming real to her as she couldn't have imagined there being so many dead and so little people alive on the rooftops. She never knew how many people Abnegation had in their population but, it must be a chunk of them. They were practically defenseless.

 _Too bad they can't stay Abnegation after they die._ She shakes her head ashamed of her thought of how, _it might not be worth it_. She doesn't want to think about how many of the dead are Dauntless or how many aren't even in the area anymore or how, _we can't just leave now after giving them false hope or something._

A brief crippling sensation freezes her, pressing down on her from all directions as she realizes that people are relying on her, and that whatever happens she could be failing them. Failing the ones that die, and the ones that get away. She takes a deep breath and wipes at a bead of sweat on her forehead.

When she sees Four bring up his gun and aim it at them to look through his scope, she drops her rifle to her side, letting it swing on the strap around her torso to hold up 8 fingers to indicate how many they have. _We've got 8 here._ She then points to her gun, in a question to him. _Any ammo on you?_

Four shakes his head NO. _Well that's not much of a surprise_. She thinks grimly.

She makes sure he's watching before aiming her gun and jerks it back to indicate shooting, and then she runs her fingers back and forth moving them across the window sill before pointing around the corner of the building.

 _We shoot, we run, lead them that way. You guys get your asses off the roof._ She says in her mind, hoping Four gets the message.

Four nods slowly but his expression looks thoughtful. _Fucking charades_. She points to them forcefully, at Four, and runs her fingers back and forth again, and then points in the opposite direction, around the building on the other side, between the buildings where the other 4 are.

 _You guys get down, run that way._ She uses both hands, running them in a circle and meeting together to indicate a rendezvous.

She thinks for a moment before rolling her eyes. _I'm gonna look fucking dumb._ She turns to her side, slinging her gun onto her back and curls her hands into fists, before bending her elbows and rolling her shoulders in a circular motion.

 _Train._ She then brings one fist up and pulls down. _Train, Four, the fucking train. Meet at the train._ She almost wants to just yell it, and clamps her teeth together to keep from doing so, to call attention now, while no one is ready would probably ruin everything.

Zeke puts a hand over his mouth to stop himself from laughing. Sometimes it helps, to keep your humor in dark times. It's in these times that you need it the most after all.

"We have 40 minutes tops till the train makes its circuit around this way." Tori whispers to Zeke and the others. "Make every shot count." That sobers him instantly, she points two fingers to the windows and everyone crouches down, their expressions focused. Aiming their guns between the broken glass.

It takes some kind of bravery and skill to shoot someone in the head. Tori wonders if it counts when they're already dead.

 _Does it hurt them?_ She really hopes so but, then, she also doesn't. She really does but no one else has to know, just like how no one has to know that if it goes wrong, she's planning on hauling-ass out of there.

* * *

 **\\\Tris/**

When the first shot rings out over the distance, Tris can't help but shield her herself, its a reflexive motion. Moments after the gunshot recedes the ear-piercing shrieks of the dead start filling the air and her ears with the horrifying shattering sounds.

The high pitched screeching as if they're sucking the air into their throats their shuddering rips through Tris making her entire body start shaking. She covers her ears and watches wide eyed as the faster dead start running towards the buildings.

Physically she can feel the adrenaline pumping through her veins but mentally she knew there was nothing she could do from her vantage.

The dead run, shamble, crawl and limp across the grass, down the slightly inclined hill. Lolling heads, and useless broken limbs swinging around, hands clawing into the dirt, pulling them across, entrails dragging behind severed torso's like sick streamers.

Some of them no longer look human, so disfigured that she wonders what is even holding them together. _How far would they go? How long can they last like this?_

Tris can't believe that they can still go on, but the dead aren't weighed down by grief or exhaustion or depression, or even fear, or guilt, anything. _Don't they get exhausted? Don't they hurt? Can't they see that they're hurting everyone?_

She shoulders her rifle on her uninjured arm and then peers through her scope to see further down, and then she lowers it to see the bigger picture. Watching horrified as their heads explode into crimson clouds and their bodies fall flat into their own mass.

Not every shot is accurate and she can see the ones tearing through arms or disabling legs, shearing them, poking holes through their hollow flesh. She flinches and shuts her eyes tightly until she feels a hand grip her arm and spin her around.

She runs with Four to the front of the house and stare down to see how many of the dead come filing out through the front door, one of them hurdles out the window and lands on another, the cracking of their bones breaking when they collide and flail against the ground forces her to turn away, her heart hammering in her chest.

The sounds make her feel like her own bones are being broken and the new strong stench that gets released when their splintered bones split their skin, releasing their boiling insides to the air sends a rolling nausea in her stomach and she swallows down the bile like acid in the back of her throat.

She waits, breathing hard now, until no others come out of the house or window but, when the gunfire ceases abruptly she whips her head around. Some of the dead have already reached the borders and she can see the figures of people being pursued.

She can hear their voices yelling, waving their arms over their heads, turning back and forth, leading them further into the city.

 _It's not enough_. She thinks, a sharp panic fills her. _There's way too many._ Tris notices as stray dead start filing _out_ of the city, attracted by the loud sounds and her heart nearly stops, she whips her gun up and stares wide eyed through her scope to see Tori take out the dead that block their escape.

The others get safely off the roofs and start sprinting in the direction Four motioned to them, they know to meet at the trains and most of them know exactly what time the train comes.

She notices that even they start yelling, leading the dead, splitting them running dangerously close, kicking and ducking away from grasping hands. A scream sounds behind some of the houses, a female scream that turns into a garbled plea and Tris's gut flops, her first thought is of Christina.

 _Where is Christina?_ She suddenly feels an overwhelming, crushing guilt over not having thought of her before. She hadn't seen her on the roofs, she didn't even look for her on the roofs. She grips her gun tightly to her chest.

Several of the dead get diverted back towards the houses, towards the scream and she scans the area frantically searching each one for short dark brown hair.

"Tris." Four calls urgently, "TRIS." His voice falls on un-hearing ears. His hand on her arm causes her to flail out, momentarily dazed, snapped back onto the roof.

A dull pain starts in her arm and she focuses on it to keep her mind from flooding and rendering her immobile again. She takes a deep breath and takes in her surroundings, the shrill shrieking anchoring her down.

Most people just sit and wait for fate to deal them their hands but Tris was never like that. She forced her beaten body up off the infirmary bed and ran for the trains for the war games, she forced herself up after the grief of Al's death weighed heavily on her. She's Dauntless but shes so much more.

A surge of desperation and purpose ran through her small form.

"There's too many." She says to Four urgently her expression becomes hardened and mirrors his, he already knows. "Over here!" She yells turning away from him, waving her arms, she ignores the searing pain flushing through her chest, her arm is heavy, her body is tired. "Everyone run! Get away from here!"

Four does the same as though they are of one mind. "This way!" He bellows. It works immediately to call attention, the dead some slowly, others quickly converge on their location. "Uriah! Get them out of here! Get safe!" Tris' voice joins Fours. "Everyone RUN!"

Uriah throws them a frantic pleading look his eyes wide as he takes in their seemingly sacrificial distraction, while helping a fellow Dauntless back down into the window, he grips their forearm as they slowly disappear legs first through the opening and he follows shortly behind.

"Just run! Okay?" Four yells. almost to no one in particular, he cups his hands to amplify his voice. "Get out of here! Get to the train!" He pulls his jacket off his head and dangles it off the side of the house, out of reach of the grasping hands, broken crooked fingers, the exposed white's of skeleton. "RUN!"

 _Abnegation. Self-sacrificing Abnegation._

Tris almost laughs, but it's a brief moment of hysteria, a spark of madness but also wonder, as an overwhelmingly large number of her old faction begin piling up around Tobias' childhood home.

The home he spent 15 years in, and in all those years, he was right next to her, a couple of houses and a row away. Sometimes hiding in a dark closet, listening to the sounds of his sobbing mother. Sometimes lying alone with a pillow clenched between his teeth, as the pain of belt lashes ripple through his back keeping him from sleep.

She steals a glance at him and he's looking right back at her, a moment of clarity, when you find that one person you would spend your last moments with, the one person you would spend every moment.

 _If only_. She thought wistfully, staring into his dark brown eyes. _If only I had found you sooner, then you would've been mine longer._

The dead clamber over each other reaching higher and higher, a wave of rotting flesh and hungry lifeless eyes crashing against the concrete cage of Tobias' torment.

They fill his house like the figures of his fear simulation, faceless, only wanting to hurt him. Hurt _her_ Tobias. But she won't let them.

She doesn't think when she slams her boot into the gnawing mouths that appear just over the ledge. She doesn't think when she jam's her gun into the faces of the people she used to greet in the morning, with enough force to dent their skulls or bring her boot down crunching the fingers off the hands they once waved at her with.

She keeps going even though her vision is blurry, her cheeks sodden. She keeps saying "I'm sorry." Over and over again. I'm so sorry. _Crunch_. I'm so sorry. _Crack_.

* * *

 **\\\Eric/**

In the waning sun, blurry images shimmer like distant mirages, create by the heat coming off the road. In the back of his mind he wondered, _What the fuck am I doing?_

He kept one hand on the steering wheel, his boot pressed all the way down on the accelerator reaching speeds of almost 100 miles per hour, speeding past the city buildings in a blur and reaches over to the passenger seat throwing open the black dufle bag stuffed with first-aid, medical supplies and guns.

He had taken them from the other Dauntless in Erudite, they were all too willing to relinquish them. _Coward_ s. He stacked ammunition, water, chemical test strips, anything his mind thought would benefit. Eric is a man of action.

He presses his knees to the bottom of the steering wheel and used his palm to snap a magazine into an semi-automatic pistol. While ignoring the conversation he had with Max play out in his head.

 _"Dauntless is being evacuated. The threat unable to be contained. They'll go to a safe zone and we'll receive word within several hours."_ Eric knew where all the safe zones were, locked and only accessible by certain Dauntless personnel.

All Dauntless leaders know the secure locations and the ones left back in Dauntless would lead them there. The way Eric saw it, he could leave Erudite and go to any number of them.

 _How did it get to Dauntless?_ Eric thought. He wanted to find out, he _needed_ to find out. _How did this - what in the fuck is happening?_ He could feel the blood rushing through his ears and a burning in his limbs.

He drops the pistol on top of the bag and cranks up the air conditioning to the maximum although it only helps to un-fog the windows, hazy from his breathing.

It doesn't help him at all, the sweat and tingling over his skin almost like anticipation, he unzips his jacket. Still no relief. He rolls the window down and slings his elbow over it. The hot air smells like summer, and not at all like the end of the world.

 _But what if this is really it? What if the city is going to collapse into nothing?_ Eric shook his head, and slammed his fist into the dashboard, denting it. He didn't want to be _excited_ about being thrust into this dire situation, watching civilization crumble, it sounded crazy to him and he didn't want to be crazy.

He was caught in a mixture of emotions. Most of all rage. It may be his Erudite, the need to know what happened and it may be his Dauntless a need to go out and find out for himself and _do_ something about it.

He knew he was going against protocol by leaving Erudite, and that maybe he wasn't thinking straight. _Fuck protocol,_ Eric thought. _Fuck protocol and fuck hiding behind Erudite glass waiting around._

He replayed the image of Abnegation in his head, as of right now he wasn't even sure if there would be anyone left there and when he could see the black smoke climbing into the sky and the tops of the gray monotone buildings coming into view it seemed a little less likely.

He slowed the truck down and stopped, putting it into park and gripped the pistol in his left hand hanging out the window. The dead in a crazed frenzy around and through Abnegation, and he felt a coldness in his gut like he did something horribly wrong or that he was a little too late. He wondered why he even came back.

He sat idle for a moment watching, letting the hum of the vehicle vibrate through his aching limbs. He wanted to mow them all down, drive his knife though their guts, or plant bullets into their skulls. He curls his finger over the trigger and ignores the incessant nagging in his gut, taking a breath and holding it and then releasing it, emptying his mind.

He revved the engine, slammed the gear into drive and stepped on the gas without another thought and the large armored black vehicle lurched forward, the back wheels skidding across the street, making a loud screeching noise before speeding into Abnegation.

His eyes skirted the fast passing scenery, he no longer saw the dead in the on-coming mob, only faceless gaping bloody mouths, amorphous masses of sickening human flesh, gnashing teeth and clawing hands.

The first to arrive near his window he shot, a perfect bullet through the skull cleaving it clear off, leaving only the lower jaw as it falls back. Bodies splaying over the windshield and the tires running them over, breaking bones and crushing them under rubber, making his drive less smooth but more bumpy.

He scans through his window raising and ducking his head, eyes focused on rooftops, as he drives through the first row of houses. The cracks and thuds of the dead hitting the hood of the vehicle fill his ears over their guttural snarling and snapping and he shields himself when a piece or splatter almost gets him while he hangs out the window.

 _It fucking stinks._ He thinks, holding his breath as an acrid smell filled his nostrils he almost rolls the window up but the windshield is, more or less, covered in filth that he can hardly see through. He flicks the wipers on and they begin swiping and swearing the blood, guts and dark mass off the tinted glass.

 _That really fucking helps_. He curses to himself.

He turns a sharp right and almost barks a menacing laugh when he sees two survivors on a lone cement house all the way at the end, a wave of dead clambering and crawling over each other managing to get up on top.

Eric pushes the button to roll his window up, and takes a moment to slide a cigarette out of his front pocket, placing it between his lips ignoring the loud thumps as the dead catch up to the vehicle. He strikes a match over the dashboard and puffs, sucking the flame towards the roll of tobacco and filling his lungs with a burning sensation.

 _My first cigarette. At the beginning of the end._

He presses his back up against the leather seat and reaches up to the roof of the armored vehicle, ignoring the shaking and scratching coming from all sides as the dead press and shove themselves up against the truck and he undoes the latches to the crawl hole on the roof.

He revs the engine loudly and curls both hands around the steering wheel, his knuckles white as he tightens his grip, and he speeds past the other rows, plowing straight into the pyramid of dead Dauntless and Abnegation.

The masses of bodies go right over and under the vehicle. The sheer force slows it down at the first impact, the dead spraying over the sides, breaking open, shredded into body parts and meat fragments, throwing them yards away.

His stomach churns with the movement and the obscene visual and he feels it now, the adrenaline dump.

He bites down on the cigarette filter uncaring of the ashes that fall onto his jacket, swallowing down the thick burning bit of bile that crawled its way up out of the depths of his gut that fills his mouth with a taste like smoke and vomit and turns out of the front seat, standing quickly to turn the latch on the roof of the vehicle, then reaching to grip his pistol.

He shoves it open tossing the unidentified weight off the lid and is first greeted by the loud shrieking and howling, ear-shattering noises. "Get in the fucking truck!" Eric yells to a stutter shocked Tris and Four, their expressions wide and bewildered jaws hung limply like one of the dead.

Hands caked with dry blood reach for him from all around and the vehicle is at least 4 feet from the building.

 _They can jump._ He thinks to himself. _It's not far._ He's suddenly reminded of the jump everyone takes to get into Dauntless, _it's more of a fall but same difference._ It's a funny thought, one he dismisses immediately.

He turns and spits the cigarette out, taking a sharp breath of the arid stink before shooting a single bullet into the dead drooping face of an Abnegation that hung onto the front of the vehicle, moaning and yapping it's jaw at Eric like it's complaining of his driving.

He watches as the dead scramble over the other inhumanly shaped forms, he can still make out the bodies, as some of them continue to twitch and claw around. One unable to use it's legs reaches and bites at the air, it's entire half of the face gone, the eyeball swinging held only by the cord.

Eric darts back inside, nearly slamming his head on the edge of the roof just as Tris leaps across the distance.

"Hey there, Stiff number two." Eric says with a cool and complacent tone that he complements himself on mentally, while maneuvering himself back into the front seat.

Tris plops down into the back row without a word.

"Stiff number one." He adds when he hears a second loud thump on the roof and then on the seat. He doesn't turn back to take in the state their in and places a hand to the steering wheel,starting the windshield wipers up again. He listens to the sound of their heavy breathing and the frantic scrapes of metal as the latch is being turned and locked back into place.

"Anyone need a cigarette?"

* * *

 **Reviews are greatly appreciated! I'll be trying to put in minute edits here and there as I read over it but no big changes.**

 **Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read and view my story :]**


	4. Tremble

**Hey there :)**

* * *

 **\\\Four/**

He sags down into the leather with a weight that makes him feel like he could meld into it, through it. He was sure the roof hatch was locked well and tight, but he was also more than a little sure that the dead didn't have enough left of their mental capabilities to open it.

The smell of air conditioning fills his nostrils and he inhales sharply, feeling like he hadn't taken a breath in forever. The cold and hot air mix, expanding in his lungs to the point of bursting.

Only after the bitter taste of bile hit his tongue did he notice the overpowering stench that followed after. Like rot and body odor mixed with lingering cigarette smoke.

The stench, he realized, emanated from himself now. It was no longer the smell of the dead.

His fingers and hands slippery, his knuckles throbbing and raw. He could feel smeared blood beginning to coagulate on his cheeks and jaw, his once stiff shirt now drenched in sweat, clinging to him like a second layer of skin.

Flashes of gaping wounds, whites of bones and the crunch of them against his fists, lifeless eyes, and gnashing teeth invaded his senses.

He closes his eyes and tilts his head back against the headrest, clutching his knees to keep from using his hands to cover his ears.

"You're alive." Tris says, speaking to Eric, she sounds _surprised_ , like she's seen a ghost. Her voice is an anchor to Four's wayward thoughts and emotions.

Four raises his heavy eyelids and turns his cheek to see her, leaning forward at the edge of her seat. Her hands shaking, curled into fists on her lap. The same dark red coat over them, splashing up to her bony wrists like winter gloves.

 _If anyone looked ghostly_ , he thought, _it would be us_.

Her face is a deathly pale, and her eyes rimmed with dark splotches. The light brown of her irises now, an almost pitch black in the lighting. Her cheeks and neck decorated with droplets and streaks of blood like his own.

 _We're alive._ Four thought, and at the moment he wasn't sure how or why, but then, he knew it was because of _Eric_ , he also thought though, that it was _because_ of Eric and Erudite that all this had happened in the _first_ place.

"Yeah, no thanks to _you_." Eric blurts with a dry, humorless laugh.

Four rears back, planting a boot into the middle of the drivers seat, causing Eric to jerk forward against the steering wheel.

"Oh, and all these people aren't dead because of _you?_ " He pulls his leg back to his chest and delivers another strong kick.

" _You're_ still alive right?" Eric asks matter-of-factly before shaking his head in the front seat. He sits gripping the steering wheel tighter till his knuckles turn white and the veins bulge from the back of his hands.

Four catches his threatening gaze in the rear view mirror as though Eric could change that in seconds if he _wanted_ to, and he brings his boot back once more.

"Four. . .Don't." He halts his assault when he notices Tris reach for him, and pause when she takes in the condition of her hands, staring at them, horrified, as if she's just now seeing them.

His stomach plummets as her eyes widen and darken with despair.

"Do you really think _we_ did this? That we could be _capable_ of this kind of - That we would do this?" Eric argues with a hint of hysteria in his voice. "Look around stiffs, those thing's aren't exactly _dead_ are they? Those _things_ aren't even people. Not anymore."

The comment struck a violent chord within Four.

He didn't feel much like a person himself anymore. He pictured himself looking almost exactly like one of the corpses outside, covered in blood, sweat, and filth, as though he had just torn into a living, breathing, person himself.

"Whose fucking fault is it then?" Four yells, his body starts shaking. His nerves shot to shit. "Who _else_ could be responsible? _You,_ the other Dauntless leaders, and Erudite planned to wipe Abnegation out! You were going to slaughter them all _anyway_! Look at what happened Eric, did you get what you wanted? What exactly were you trying to accomplish?"

He couldn't stop himself from the barrage of kicks he began to throw into the back of Eric's seat, using enough force to disengage the space adjustment mechanism and push it forward, crushing Eric against the steering wheel.

Eric curses loudly and forcefully drives his chair back, ducking down, as Four reaches around in an attempt to choke him. He swipes at empty air before the headrest strikes him in the cheek and chest and he falls back onto his ass.

"Tobias stop it!" Tris reaches for him again and in that same moment Eric slams his boot down onto the breaks and they lurch forward as the vehicle makes a sudden screeching, stuttering stop.

The loud hum of the vehicle's engine becomes a low-pitched hiss and the tires drum against ridges and cracks in the unpaved road.

Four collides with the seat in front him just barely putting his arms up to keep his face from another impact before getting thrown onto the ground between them. His head smacks against the edge, sending a burst of light across his vision and a punch to his sinuses.

Next to him he could see Tris' impact as her injured shoulder hits the seat when she gets thrown back onto her side. Her eyes shut tightly in a pained grimace.

He shoulders himself upright quickly and crawls to check her, stepping between the seats, turning away from the immediate danger. A mistake.

Eric shoves his chair all the way back and it strikes Four in the shoulder. He immediately braces his elbow to keep from landing directly on his side, back into the seat and before he can recover or realize his mistake, he feels the cold muzzle of a gun pressed to his temple.

He freezes instinctively with his eyes on Tris, lying still, not an inch from his outstretched hand. The breath caught in his lungs, and the hair on the back of his neck rises.

"Sit up, slowly. Turn and face me, Eaton." Eric commands, his tone a deep snarl indicating that he's done being fucked with.

The pressure of the barrel against his clammy skin increases and Four moves with measured slowness until he sits with his back straight.

He stares unflinchingly and accusingly into Eric's predatory gaze, the pistol aimed dead center on his forehead. This time there is no avoiding it.

Four could've sworn he saw something behind Eric's usual predominant scowl this time though, it's different, not triumph, not loathing, nothing remotely familiar. Something that wasn't there _before_.

 _Pain? Regret? Remorse?_ As soon as he saw it, it was gone, replaced by the same asshole Eric he always knew, with those dark listless eyes narrowed into a glare under furrowed pierced brows, lips curled into an almost threatening half-grin, half-snarl.

Only, the Eric he knew would've shot him by now. This was his opportunity, Four had no escape, no weapon and yet, minutes seemed to pass and Eric _doesn't_.

He becomes confused as Eric lifts his finger _off_ the trigger slowly, followed by the rest, letting the gun swing on his thumb through the trigger guard.

"Don't!" Tris yells shaking her head to dispel her dizziness. "Killing each other isn't going to fix _anything_." She scrambles to a sitting position. "We can't afford to be fighting each other and. . .And the. . .The dead." She takes in the position of the hanging gun and blinks, confused.

As if on cue, a blunt impact hits the back of the truck catching their attention and they _all_ glance back, craning their necks to look over the third row of seating as if they'll see the cause of the noise.

There is no back window, only the rest of the vehicle and the steel double loading doors at the end.

Eric reaches behind him and engages the door locks although they are already locked and barred. The hollow click is loud in Four's ear and actually does make them feel safer. A little.

They sit in silence for a moment, of the banging and scratching against metal, suddenly lost in thought that the world might have indeed become so black and white.

The dead outside don't care who you are or what you've done. They don't care if you're Divergent or not, or what your name is, how old you are, what faction you're in.

Eric lets out a breath, holding the gun in the air between them. "Whatever this shit is. . . Erudite - the other leaders and I, know next to nothing about it. Now it doesn't really matter if you believe me and I don't give a shit if you do but. . .Fuck, I don't know."

Four stares hard at the gun and thinks about what Eric just said before wiping his hands on his pants and accepting it. In more ways than one he felt he wasn't just accepting the gun.

He felt like he was accepting some momentary truce between them, accepting that just maybe, all this would've happened anyway. This is just the way shit went.

"What about the rest of the factions?" Tris asks immediately. Her concern genuine to Four but Eric looks back and forth between them speculatively. _Why should they care?_

"Candor and Amity have been alerted. . .Dauntless is evacuating to one of the safe zones. Apparently this. . .Somehow got there, or. . .Whatever the hell." Eric explains, shaking his head before turning back to rummage around the front seat of the vehicle, slamming the glove compartment, picking his bag off the ground. "Erudite is on lock-down."

"Why are you out here, instead of holding up in Erudite like the rest of them then?" Four asks. "What was your plan exactly?"

He had to admit they really have no plan themselves right now, as they didn't actually expect to make it out of Abnegation.

But he sure as hell wasn't about to get dragged to Erudite if that was Eric's intention.

Eric takes a moment of silence before answering. "I'm still working on it, but it involves finding out for myself what the fuck happened at _Dauntless_ , and then probably do something about it, not that there's much else to do about, well. . .The 'dead' ones, besides. . .Where are the _others_?"

Four considers Eric's so called ' _plan_ ' and wonders by his question, if Eric assumes they've just been recruited to go along with him and is now just looking for more followers.

From the empty vehicle, Four takes it that there were none willing at Erudite.

They had other more immediate concerns and he wasn't about to just take up arms with Eric on a whim either. Tris still needed medical attention and he'd yet to take stock of his own condition.

Sure he was curious and wanted answers too, but they had to survive first.

"They were headed for the train." Tris answers immediately. "There were. . .10 of us on the roofs, not including Four and I. Tori said she had. . .8 with her."

Eric starts the windshield wipers and not a moment later the vehicle starts moving again. Stuttering back to life with a turn of the key in the ignition.

The vibration of the engine almost soothes Four's aching limbs but it also makes him feel like the very world was trembling around him. Whats _left_ of their world.

"I don't know if you've noticed Eric, but you aren't a leader anymore as far as anyone. . .anyone _left_ is concerned." Four says as he leans back.

He wonders if Eric knows that he, of all people have more than just the dead to worry about and that even if he and Tris believe him, he doubts _anyone_ else will.

"With the way things are headed. . .There might not be anything or anyone left at all in the future." Eric replies. "The way I see it, we're all gonna wind up dead one way or another, but, I'd like some answers _first,_ I'm sure I'm not the only one. . ."

Four nods his head to himself.

"Speaking of which, if you fuckers decide to shoot me again, do me a favor and aim for the head _instead_ of leaving me to end up like that." Eric turns in his seat to tilt his head at Tris as if speaking solely to her and Four answers before he can antagonize her further.

"Alright." Four says simply, without making it a solid promise. He can't make promises for anyone else with a gun and a hate for Eric, and he's sure there was no shortage of those.

"And no worries. I'll always have a bullet in my gun for you guys." Eric says as if he assumed they would request the same courtesy. "Won't let you two end up like your buddies back there either."

Four grits his teeth and curls his hand tightly around the pistol, but, he had to admit, d _ying by a bullet is quicker than being eaten alive._

He suddenly thought about dying. About being torn to pieces, and devoured, something he hadn't actually considered up on the roof.

A death he did not want for himself or Tris. A death he wouldn't wish on _anyone_.

"Why did you help _us_?" Tris asks. It was a question that they _all_ wondered about and Four had no intention of ever thanking Eric for it.

Eric didn't seem to be expecting any thanks though.

It was no secret that Eric hated Four, and Tris _had_ shot him. But In a utilitarian point of view, you usually hold onto things that have use.

He himself could see the strategic value of having someone like Eric around, and he thought that it may possibly be what Eric see's in them as well.

He also thought though, that there was a good chance they'd all die in the near future regardless. No matter what they did. No matter what Eric did. No matter what everyone does.

"I don't know. I guess I'd rather be around two live stiffs, Divergent even, than around those. . .Stiffs." Eric shrugs and waves a hand back.

Four lets out a spiteful laugh, he didn't want to admit that he never really liked being around them when they were _alive_ either.

Now that they're dead they suddenly give him much more attention.

He notices Tris shake her head slowly, her expression between grief and understanding. She has nothing to say and no more tears for the moment and he was glad for that.

They both can't argue with Eric, not _now_ at least.

* * *

 **\\\Christina/**

There were 6 of them, from what she could see in an instant chasing after Tori and Oz in the alley down below and she moved her gun a fraction.

She aimed quickly at a running dead, with only a second to identify it by the blood dribbling out of its slacked jaw. It's left leg appeared injured and dragged behind, though it moved fast, despite the crippling way it was bent. She noticed he was wearing Abnegation gray.

She moves her gun back to check Tori's condition and judge the distance between them worried that they might be injured.

Tori's face appeared clenched in rage through her scope as she raises a hand over her head, the other held Oz by the jacket collar and she was screaming.

Christina couldn't tell what she was saying but, she felt as if something went horribly wrong. She swallows down the lump in her throat and adjusts her crouch.

 _Where was Zeke? Where was Malcolm?_

She breathed out and refocused on the dead, her chest thumping loud in her ears and before she could pull the trigger the sound of a gunshot rang out in her right ear. She saw an invisible force rip through it's leg, it fell, landing hard on the ground.

It's head, she could see, bounced off the pavement in a way that made her feel like it was her own skull cracking like an egg against the earth.

Thick blackened blood poured out of it's open mouth, opened far too wide as its head lolled back, releasing a garbled howl. It reached out with both hands, the fingers twisted into claws and continued to crawl.

A shudder ripped through Christina and her finger suddenly felt stuck. She blinked once. The ringing in her ears hadn't subsided yet.

Her mind was a tumult, she sat there staring hard, unable to move. Unable to process movement.

She could hear the screeching in the distance and the sounds of gunfire around her from the other roof but she couldn't stop picturing the sickening way Mia scuttled over the grass on all fours, dragging her twisted broken leg.

She could feel the adrenaline pumping through her body, every part of her was shaking with it. Shaking so violently that she couldn't feel if she were really breathing.

 _It's as if the very world were trembling._ She thought with another un-fulfilling breath.

"Chris!" She ripped her eyes away from the images and spun when she felt a strong hand on her shoulder, her gun slinging onto her back. "We need to run!" A Dauntless screamed into her ear before releasing her.

She nodded but when she tried to stand out of her crouch, her legs felt stiff and she grabbed the brick wall that lined the roof to keep from falling. The static pains of sleeping limbs tingles through her legs and feet.

She hauls herself up, forcing her legs to comply before leaning over the top to look down the narrow alleyway that ends at a flimsy chain link fence.

The city area between Abnegation and the tracks, dense with hollowed out buildings and a large number of alleys. Escape routes.

Christina peered over at the other roof tops and watched the others beginning their retreat, feeling that things weren't going to go as planned. It seemed less likely when some of them ran for it as _soon_ as Tori left, leaving them with 3 Dauntless short.

She didn't blame them. She couldn't because she was just as scared. She had hope though, and a strong gut feeling that the others would make it to the train.

It might have been wishful thinking, even she thought it might be, and yet she kept it in her mind that getting to the train would mean safety for them all.

She's always been an optimist and anyway, the truth _is_ a hard pill to swallow. Maybe that's why Christina left Candor, because sometimes the cold hard truth, reality, holds little appeal.

"Let's go!" The Dauntless yelled at her, she blinks at his pale face, his eyes sunken in and full of panic as he motions impatiently with his hand. He was already turning away when she finally broke into a sprint, pushing herself off the wall after him.

She runs to the end of the roof and vaults over the waist high wall, floating over the short distance between buildings, suspended in the air as if she were flying.

The drop almost 10 stories, down into the dark asphalt abyss below but, falling off roofs is the least of her worries.

She lands on the other lower rooftop with a tuck and roll, before kicking off to begin running again. Just barely taking notice of the jagged pieces off rooftop rubble that scrape her palms.

Her boots drum in time to the beat of her heart and the weight of her gun bouncing against her back. She chanted to herself a mantra. _Get to the train. Get to the train._ Her lungs and legs burning for that purpose.

The two reach the end of the roof and the Dauntless, she remembered his name now - Chad swung off, gripping the sides of a ladder. Christina watched as he pressed his boots to the sides and slid down quickly several stories and hit the steel staircase that winded down the side of the building.

She mimic's him and together they run, around and around, leaping down stairs at a time, their hands only hovering over the hot metal railings, touched by the heat of the sun.

When they hit the ground they circle back around the corner of the building and she draws her gun, breathing heavily. Her eyes skirting everywhere even over the faded brick walls. Her entire body pivoting with the gun, taking in the alley. The ground. The sky even.

Tori and Oz just clear the chain fence a block ahead and the dead hit it not moments after Tori throws herself away from it, nearly losing her balance.

"Where the fuck are the others?!" Tori screeches, turning around, her fingers brush against the ground as she regains her balance.

Christina stares past her at the fence, _it won't hold._ The loud shaking metal creaks with age and rust. Worry pickles up her spine.

The dead press their faces against it, their fingers broken, some just bone, stick through the interwoven metal like caged animals and the others come up behind, pushing them further into it.

She stares wide eyed at the little red tears at the perimeter of one of their cheeks where it's peeled back from it's skull, it's eyeball rolling around in a gelatinous cavity, spilling out of the socket as it's face gets crushed against the fencing like it could squeeze through the tiny diamond shaped holes.

The group turn and Christina realizes Tori has a grip on her jacket collar now, hauling her away. She shuts her eyes for a brief moment as if her own eyeballs stood a threat of popping out.

She spins, ducking under Tori's arm to face away. The jacket twists around her neck.

"They ran." Chad replies breathlessly. They both calm down in the presence of Tori. "Where is Mal? Zeke? Cordy? The other guys?"

Christina stares at Oz's back as they make their way back around the corner. She wondered the same things and both awaited and dreaded the answer.

Tori gives them none.

The hairs on her neck rise as she can hear the snapping and howling from behind her back like they're angry at being abandoned.

Christina puts it in her mind that the fence _will_ hold.

"They didn't leave the guns?" Tori asks, she doesn't receive an answer.

"They didn't exactly say goodbye either." Chad scoffs. Tori shakes her head and wipes her cheek with the back of her hand.

"Did you see Tris? Did she get off the roof?" Christina asks hurriedly, surprised by the solidity of her own voice. She's spoken very little the whole day which is unusual for her.

She shrugs Tori's hand off but then the gun in her arms suddenly felt foreign and she desperately wanted to have it replaced with a human touch, despite the circumstances.

"We'll find out at the track." Tori says simply, and something about her voice keeps them from asking anything else. They had to survive themselves first before worrying about others.

Oz remains silent and his expression is grim, adverting his gaze from Christina's. She tries not to read too much into it. She didn't want to.

The group make quickly for the back of the complex and broke into a sprint when they could see the clearing between two decrepit buildings.

 _So close_ , she thought _. We just have to get to the train and then we'll be safe._

The picture of Candor filled her mind, a massive 18 story building across a wide river, accessible only over a collapsible bridge or by train, their destination. _Safe_.

She followed Tori up to a waist-high brick wall and clambered over, the drop further than she anticipated and she lands hard on her hands and knees, immediately pushing herself back up with help from Oz who still won't look her in the eye.

Her lungs heaving and muscles aching worse now as if ready for the relief that safety provided, but her entire body felt heavy the further away they went.

As if she were forgetting something, leaving something behind. She tucked the feeling away. Something to dwell on when she could afford to.

They leave the shelter of the buildings, exiting out into a flat expanse of several miles with the train tracks directly between them and another ocean of buildings.

The train whistle blares in the distance, a sound that makes their hearts race. The hum of of the vibrating metal tracks resonates through their tired bodies.

She strains her eyes and cranes her neck in the direction that it would be coming from but, the curve of the tracks obscures it from view.

"Over there!" Oz yells as they continue making their way closer.

She follows his pointing hand, looking in the opposite direction and sees a group of people sprinting towards them from about a mile away.

Christina immediately shoulders her gun and peers through her scope to search their faces and count them. "7." She says. "8. . .9." But her gut rolls because none of them is Tris, none of their faces belong to Four.

None of their faces belong to _Will_.

They're alive though, she thought, hoping the same for the ones not seen. She watches as they begin to scramble _across_ the tracks and in the opposite direction as if suddenly diverted.

Her blood runs cold. Christina curls her finger around the trigger when she sees an alarming number of dead spilling out from between the buildings after them.

A mass exodus of tattered, bloody forms hurling over each other. Some falling and getting trampled under other dead spilling out of the alley like water in a drain pipe.

"Don't." Tori says placing her hand across the barrel of Christina's gun, forcing her to lower it. "They'll be fine, save the ammo."

Christina glances frantically at where the train will appear and she can see the faint glimmer of metal shining against the sun as it rounds the corner of a buildings.

Tori is right, they'll run on the other side of the tracks and the dead will try to cross in pursuit but the train was practically upon them. She shudders at the images of bodies crushed and shredded by the train. The likely outcome.

A strong hand grips her jacket from behind and drags her backwards, she can only guess who has her and this time she makes no complaint. They cross over the tracks and she could feel the clicking of the train through her boots.

The screeching of metal against metal gets louder and the group take off, running along the tracks as the train glides towards them.

To Christina's surprise there are Dauntless already on it, waiting at the open doors of the cars. She throws herself sideways towards their outstretched hands. One grabs her arm and she grasps the handle next to the doorway as he pulls her into the safety of the cab.

She falls to her knees in the nearly empty car and within moments it becomes more and more dense with the bodies and heavy breathing of others that clamber in, falling over each other.

The cold vibrating metal of the train under her sweaty palms doesn't quite make her feel safe like she thought it would. She closes her eyes to steady her heart beating against her ribs, tightening around her lungs.

"You alright?" Oz asks her briskly, lowering himself beside her. She nods and suddenly remembers introducing herself to Tris this same way. "What was your name?"

 _"I'm Christina"_ She said in her head to Tris and out loud to Oz, offering her hand.

It's a weird thing to remember but it's also comforting. He takes her hand in a strong grip and shakes it twice.

"Ozzie." He replies.

 _Beatrice._ Tris had answered in her head but, Christina can see that she's not on this train. Not this time. Her heart gives a little squeeze.

The wind blows harder through the open doors and she crawls over to the corner so she can peer sideways outside at the passing buildings and catch a last glimpse of Abnegation.

She sees the marsh, wide and brown and she sees the city. Abnegation a gash, with dark smoke curling towards the sky like gangling twisted claws, reaching for the life that's escaped.

Tears begin to blur Christina's vision, and she wipes at them to no avail because they keep falling, creating streaks down her dusty cheeks.

A pull at her back turns her around and Tori grips the gun still slung around her torso. Tori yanks it over her head, Christina raises her arm so the strap won't catch and snag her elbow.

Before she can ask what Tori is doing, the woman hurls herself _off_ the train.

Right out the open doors. Without even saying goodbye.

Christina watches wide, teary eyed as the woman disappears and buildings of the city envelope them back into the shadows, like a vein barreling through glass, brick and metal bowels.

* * *

 **\\\Tris/**

The truck doors slam loudly as Four and Eric exit the vehicle. The slams resonates in her ears and through her chest and she wonders what it was exactly they had said just seconds ago. They'd missed the train, and none sure how long ago but the sound of gunshots was unmistakable.

There were still _people_ out there.

Her temperature was beginning to elevate, dehydration, blood loss and exhaustion starting to catch up with her now that the initial shock ebbed away. Her skin felt clammy, sweat decorating her forehead, strands of hair plastered around her face. Her breaths came in short shallow and labored rasps.

She grips the rifle tightly in her hands to prevent them from trembling, and brings it close to her chest before crouching up onto the leather seats. The roof hatch unlocked and propped open above her. She presses her hand against the lock wheel and takes a deep breath, holding the metal, closing her eyes and resting her cheek on her raised arm.

Tris tells herself that she will count to three and when she's done, she will move on. She'd done it before, she can do it again. It works. Mind over matter.

She takes a deep breath in through her mouth and releases it slowly through her nose.

One, she pictures her mother or more, lets her mind drop the secure walls she erected. She would have to face it sometime. Her heart twisted wretchedly in her chest as if squeezing it dry of blood.

Two. She watches the light leave Wills eyes as he falls to his knees and drops forward into a pool of his own blood. Her lungs felt shriveled and she sucked in a raspy breath, catching and trapping her sob.

It isn't nearly enough, it won't ever be, but it has to be right now. There are people out there that need help and she could help them.

Three. She pushes the heavy metal open and stands. Pressing the butt of the gun against her injury, pulling it back to apply pressure and keep it steady as she braces her elbow on the burning hot metal roof.

A stab of pain shoots through her shoulder, making her feel a little light headed and she curls her finger around the trigger breathing in and out slowly before peering purposefully through the lenses.

The train tracks are smeared red, and she ignores the twitching scattered remains along the pavement and rubble. Her eyes flick between the moving and mobile targets.

From where she perched she could see Eric kneeling behind a waist high brick wall a few feet from the vehicle, his gun balanced over the lip of the bricks and he jerks his head.

Four jumps the wall, keeping his gun low and ready, making a beeline along the side of a building. They've not fired yet. But she hears a crackle and pop of distant gunfire.

"Where is he going?" Tris asked Eric. She frantically raised her gun planting her elbows onto the hot roof of the truck. Unable to see where the shots echo from.

She follows Four until he disappears around a corner and her breath catches. Panic blooms in her chest forcefully. Anxiety skyrocketing.

"Over there." Eric hisses before aiming his gun over the wall in the direction of the tracks to their right. "Use your fucking eyes."

Tris pivots her torso around in the truck and aims towards what looks to be an awning on the side of a building. Her chest squeezes tightly when she sees 3 people trapped atop it.

Zeke bloodied and injured, held up by his brother Uriah and Tori. Tori fires at the dead that try to get at them from below. There is no way for the group to get their attention without attracting the attention of the dead as well.

Tris can see them chauffing and circling in wild jerky movements. Her finger curls around the trigger. "Don't. Not yet." Eric says as though he can read her intention.

At first she wonders why they can't just drive over and have them jump in like Eric's last stunt but she can see the benches and build up of debris around them that would make it impossible to simply plow through.

"Wait for Four." Eric says pointing towards a building adjacent to the scafold the survivors are trapped on.

 _What is Four going to do?_ Tris thinks panicked. "What is Four going to do?" She asks out loud.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading. Leave a review!**


	5. Hail

**Long chapter. Hopefully I was able to make it worth the wait, which I'm sorry for by the way XD**

 **Thanks for the reviews and favorites/follows and the Pm's too!**

* * *

 **\\\Four/**

Moving quickly, he ducked low into a crouch, his back close to the buildings as he sidestepped his way to a nearby alley where he contextually leaned out.

He held his gun in a relaxed grip and kept it tucked close to his body, readjusting his sweaty grip every few seconds.

All around the dead were chauffing, clacking teeth and dragging about anxiously. The tracks strewn with limbs and chunks of bodies torn and ripped to shreds between the train and rails leaving twisted and undistinguishable masses behind.

With once glance left and right he could see the entire length of the narrow alley was clear and he took a fast look back at Eric still crouched behind the wall and Tris half out of the vehicle's crawl roof.

Both were watching him intently. Tris' eyes never left him and her expression was fierce with worry, the lines etched into her forehead and her mouth open with unasked questions.

Normally he wouldn't be comfortable leaving Tris with Eric or anyone really, but at the moment he felt he would much rather leave her in the safety of the large armored vehicle and armed ruthless ex-leader than cavorting about narrow areas with hordes of dead around.

He also knew if _he_ didn't do something Tris would. She would always be more Abnegation than he, but, there was nothing he wouldn't do for _her_.

As soon as he entered the alley he sprinted straight and then right, down adjoining alleys for the building he knew was almost directly connected to the scaffolding Tori, Zeke and Uriah were caught on.

The gun beat against his back as he ran and the wind whipped through his sweat soaked shirt. He jumped over potholes and moved as silently as he could manage, though his breathing from running was becoming loud and labored.

He slowed to a jog, praying that each graveled crunch of his boot didn't alert the dead and focused on the rhythm of his breath to the beat of his boots and heart.

Four liked running. The speed and freedom, the way it made all his muscles work effortlessly to carry him across vast distances, with the world blurring past him.

But now, he just felt like something was chasing him and he hated that feeling. It made him run faster though, and much, much more quietly.

Four made his way to a window, where he glanced inside, pressing his back against the sill, angling himself to see both the alley and the interior through the glass and a single bar of wood holding it shut.

He looked down at the other row of windows, all completely boarded up and sealed. This was his way in. At least he was sure it was the best bet.

An empty room with a large desiccated dresser, the remains of a bed frame and a door broken off it's hinges lay just behind the aged thickly fog covered glass.

He was used to seeing these sorts of amenities across the city, of lives lived and hastily abandoned. Bits and pieces of faction-less that have wandered here and there, and from the looks of it there were none inside the room.

It reminded him of a faction-less man he met a long time ago, on the day of his aptitude test. Where he had heard his mothers name spoken for the first time since she _supposedly_ died when he was 6 years old.

The thought brought his mother to mind and he shook it out of his head. Eventually they'll get word or catch wind of some stray and he can ask of her.

Without further hesitation he put a boot through the glass. It shattered easily under the weight of his kick, he didn't have time to take rusted nails out one at a time.

The glass breaking, sounded like the loudest noise he could possibly make.

He kicked at the jagged leftovers and the plywood repeatedly till the wood on the other side finally gave in with a loud snap, dropping hollowly among the debris.

Four threw one look over his shoulder before hurdling into the opening, rolling over the concrete ground inside before immediately pushing himself up using his forearms.

Jagged shards of glass bit into his skin up his elbow but he ignored it, gritting his teeth against the burning pain. There wasn't a part of him that didn't ache already.

He immediately rushed to the dresser and shoved his shoulder against it, the heavy old wood creaked against his weight but shifted and slid over the ground.

 _Come on, move_ , he commanded in his head, shoving as hard as he could.

His muscles strained with the effort of pushing it over the old, cracked and dusted ground and he could feel every tiny bit of glass in his skin as his body tensed and pulled together around them.

The snapping, snarling sounds right outside made the hairs on his body rise. They were almost upon him. He shoved harder, ignoring the burning stretch in his limbs and leathery skin from being out in the sun all day.

His eyes trained on the window trying to prepare himself for the sight but he still jumped back, startled when the first appeared at the window reaching through the opening with it's crooked fingers, and broken stained nails.

A girl, Dauntless, with wild blood matted hair and those strange demented eyes that never focus on anything. Half her face torn down in a permanent grimace, skin separated from the flesh beneath, hanging on like a mask.

Hungry faces filled the open space behind hers, screaming at him in desperate frustration, all of them trying to climb through at once.

Thinking fast he slammed into the dresser and sent it toppling over, into the window crushing their twisted reaching limbs with a sickening slam.

Blood splattered the gray dusted ground in large quantities and he had to turn away when the arm, stuck, only attactchd by splintered bone, begun swinging in muscle spasms, slapping uselessly against the concrete wall and the dresser.

He took breaths through his nose and out his mouth, dispelling the bout of nausea that threatened to send him into dry heaves as he knelt over, hands on his knees.

The dresser created a barricade. Not the one he wanted but just as effective if the middle of it didn't give out, or it didn't slide back. It bought him time.

He found himself backpedalling, away from the growing puddle that touched the tip of his boots, the loud squeak of the wet rubber soles against concrete make him cringe.

Four turned and bounded out of the room, his eyes skirted the long hallway he entered and he shot for the stairs, indicated by a faded sign that read Stairwell 1fl, some of the letters gone with age and wear.

He took the stairs two and three at a time, reaching the 2nd floor in seconds. Entering the hall and shutting the door closed behind him, stopping only to search for a means of escape and he found it at the end of the hall.

 _Fire escape_.

Turning back, he kicked at the handle to bend it against the door, hoping it would keep it held shut in case the dead got in and up the stairs.

It wasn't likely they would try to turn the handle but it felt necessary to him. You should never underestimate someone- _something_ trying to kill you.

Rushing down the hallway he ignored the first few doors and head straight for the Fourth. It was an unconscious decision more out of intuition.

He turned the door knob, felt it catch and scrape the door frame. The stripping crackled as the long-sealed door finally separated and swung open but the hinges broke off and the door fell flat on the ground.

From downstairs, he thought he heard the distinct sound of wood breaking and giving way. He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. They couldn't have heard him.

His heart lept into overdrive, pumping at a hundred miles per hour against his ribs and he hurdled across the room to the long windows, determined not to waste another second.

Every second was an opportunity for fear to take over and he wasn't going to let it catch up to him.

The room was dark and he knew the windows in the room were boarded up as well and went straight for the far wal where he clawed at them, ignoring the sharp splintering wood that dug under his nails and into the soft flesh of his fingertips.

Today was no doubt a fucked up day but as long as he was alive he wasn't going to complain about splinters or glass, that was the least of his worries.

He pried the corner off and relief washed over him with the sunlight outside, until, he was sure he could hear noises, loud and clear. From _inside_.

Footsteps cluttered the landing of stairs and he registered the hissing, moaning, screeching sound that echoed up through the halls. It made his stomach turn over.

He made quick work of the rest of the wood, breaking chunks of rotted planks off the window dropping them onto the ground and finally slaming his palms up against the top half, using his weight to pop the nails out. Curling his fingers under the tiny space he created to throw the long window up and open.

 _Lucky number Four._

Tori, Zeke and Uriah look up, just below him, and about 3 feet from the building.

He inhaled sharply filling his lungs with the thick summer air and wiped a bead of sweat that trailed down the side of his face, accidentally creating a streak of blood.

Four waved at them. Their expressions surprised, wide eyed and mouths agape.

The dead around them suddenly aware of another morsel above and their shrieks increase in volume and frequency, high pitched and excited like wolves howling at the moon.

The banging and pounding at the door to the stairwell however, echoed down the hall and into the room, perking his ears up. Dread hammered at the back of his mind.

* * *

 **\\\Tris/**

"There." Eric says aiming his gun. "Above them." His voice barely audible for the sake of concealment but she could hear him crystal clear.

It had to have been over 15 minutes and Tris was beginning to panic, her mouth was dry, her lips cracking. It was as if the world was determined to burn everything this summer, today seemed like the hottest day she'd ever experienced.

She was exhausted, plain an simple. Her body ached everywhere and the thought that the day was far from over made everything a thousand times worse.

Eric seemed to be a statue, aimed at the same spot, hardly breathing. From what she could tell, he hadn't moved once, not even a shift or idle movement.

She aimed her gun like him and peered through her scope to see Four angling what looked to be an _entire_ door on the sill of a window.

He was struggling with the weight, balancing it like a seesaw while Tori, Uriah and Zeke made space below.

A picture of reckless endangerment, not that there wasn't danger enough, now they stood a threat of being crushed by a door.

"Oh my god." Tris gasped, her heart squeezed. She spotted the blood running down his arm and her breath caught when the door nearly slid from his grasp and he hung, dangling almost all the way out of the window.

 _How was that a good idea?_

His stomach pressed into the sill like a towel on a rack and she could tell how heavy the door was based on his pained expression and the veins bulging on his face and arms. She could feel the strain in her own body.

"Hah." Eric sounded out a soft cough like laugh. "Oh fuck." The door dropped but Tori and Uriah together caught the bottom as the top fell against the wall.

Four ducked back into the building as they set up a ramp and she knew now what they intended to accomplish, but, she thought of every way it could go wrong.

 _The door slipping, no one to hold it for the last person, they get trapped inside. . ._ She couldn't see Four's makeshift plan working.

A crunch of gravel alerted Tris and she whipped around to see Eric hadn't moved.

She turned in the other direction and that's when she noticed several dead shambling towards them, one almost touching the truck, another only yards way. Followed by a handful of the slow moving dead, lumbering at a snail's pace.

"Eric!" Her tone frantic. Fear enveloped her faster than rational thought and her voice came out much too loud. His gaze snapped up to hers and recognition dawned. "Get in the truck!"

Eric was already across and at the door, wretching it open. "Gotta be fucking kidding me." The slam behind him shook the truck, just as the dead hit the back and side.

 _We led them here from Abnegtion_ , Tris thought and it was apparent Eric had the same realization. He slammed his fists into the dashboard. "They followed us all the way here?"

"We drove in a straight line." Tris spoke breathlessly, hoping that was the case and they weren't keen enough to hunt. Goaded only by instinct rather than logic.

"Change of plans stiff, unload on em'." Eric commanded and she felt the vehicle start up, humming into a steady vibration beneath her.

"We aren't leaving!" She screeched lowering further into the hole, the gun still secure under her hand against the roof. "Don't you dare drive away!"

"No choice. Shoot at the ones directly under that Tori, lead them towards us, we'll drive around the block, back here, they should be smart enough to run in the opposite direction and they can hop in while those fucktards chase us." Eric elaborates.

"What about Four?" Tris asked. "He's _inside_ the building! They don't know that we're coming back and he won't see us leave!"

"10 minutes tops just fucking tru- listen to me!" Eric turned in his seat and with that same motion he socked her in the kneecap almost buckling her. "Four is a bitch and I hate him but, he isn't gonna die today because I don't feel like letting him!"

She caught herself on the back of his seat and glared at him. His eyes were bright and the curl of his lip cruel. It was an awkward declaration, but Tris was starting to think it was the only way he could be, he might not be able to help but be a jerk.

"He'll get out of the building!" Eric roared. "Just shoot the fucking things Stiff! You're wasting fucking time!" He turned back around and slammed his palm to shift the gear into reverse.

"We aren't leaving them!" Tris screamed back. "Got it?" She could hear the scraping sounds of nails against the truck over the sound of her heart loud in her ears.

"If you don't start shooting now, I will shoot _you,_ push you out and leave them too!" Eric yelled at her but he tossed his guns into the back seat with her.

Tris moved back out, positioned her gun, curling her finger around the trigger bracing her elbows on the hot roof once again. Her skin heated enough already from the sun.

Her movements were a cross between shaky uncertainty and trembling purpose. She didn't want to leave even for a second but they had to do something.

She aimed at the cluster of dead around the scaffolding and chose a target.

The vehicle backed up and she heard the loud thumps as it collided with the mangled bodies. The distinct cracking of bones as he ran them over, with a bumping and lurching of brakes swayed her so she braced a boot against the backseat headrest and pressed her elbows harder into the roof.

She had her sights set on a man's head, dressed in Abnegation gray. _No not a man anymore_ , she tried to convince herself but even now she couldn't help but think of them as he, she, him and her.

Tris couldn't recognize the man, his gray clothes are torn and bloodied and his mouth spilled with spit and dark mush. An ornamental decorum of a hunter marking itself with the rissiduum of its prey.

Just how many people had he sunk his teeth into? Whose blood stained his teeth, lips and mouth? Whose flesh filled his hollow belly?

Tris took a deep breath and pulled the trigger on the exhale, she keep herself from blinking though her eyes were dry and wide, stinging.

Her bodies urge to blink for moisture, stronger than her desire to shut out the image behind her eyelids.

She accepted that the world is very different than it was a little while ago.

It's ugly, it was ugly before too though. And just because you close your eyes doesn't mean it all disappears, it doesn't mean that it isn't happening.

The shot rings out loud, ripping through her eardrums, an explosion in comparison to shrieks and howls.

A receding siren in her perforated ears drowns out the rest of the noise and the recoil sends a shock wave of pain through her shoulder down her side like she's being torn in half.

The bullet punches a hole through his cheek, thickness sprays from the exit wound at the back of his head covering the others with bits of brains, skull fragments and blobs of blood.

Every head turned in their direction then.

Every milky eye rolled at the armored vehicle and the air filled with the eerie shattering inward screeches in unison as if the real hunt had begun.

The truck backed up faster as the dead sprinted at them from what seemed like every direction, shrieking wildly and Eric blared the truck horn as if the gunshot wasn't enough. He was challenging them, taunting them.

Tris thought she heard Eric laugh and she ignored the lump lodged in her throat and chose a fast one next, firing quick.

Her shot clipped his shoulder shearing through his shirt and skin in a red burst, spinning him but, he turned right back around, slumping forward with no regard to his injury.

She watched him raise his head skyward, his jaw dislocated, slackened from his face and out of his jowls he unleashed an unearthly shriek that made Tris's blood run cold.

Three shots brought him to the ground, but he kept crawling on all fours, stubbornly dragging himself across the asphalt as the others hurled and trampled over him, smashing him under their boots, shoes and bloodied feet.

She couldn't blame Eric's reversing maneuver for her aim, though he swerved and slammed the breaks often. She knew she could do better, it was the stress, the pressure, and the exhaustion mixed unevenly with frantic energy making her jittery.

She breathed hard, her chest thumping like a kick-drum. She could feel the adrenaline pumping through her body. Every vein and every fiber, every bone and every nerve, all forcing awake and buzzing.

 _Statistically speaking, you should have hit the target at least once by now, even by accident._

Tris' jaw tightens rock-like and her eyes narrow.

 _I think you're actually defying nature._

She squeezes the trigger, unloading into the crowd of runners as the truck continued to back up, picking up speed.

 _Targets,_ drop with each bullet, each bruising recoil against her shoulder down her spine and every loud shot echoing and reverberating through her.

The empty shells tink against the metal roof, falling like the bodies.

 _So you see, I'm right. The stats don't lie._

* * *

 **\\\Tori/**

Tori pulled Zeke to the side, out of the way just as Four landed with a heavy thud and grunt on his side, after throwing himself out the window.

She knew they wouldn't be climbing into the building after that and suddenly the door seemed like a joke. Four gave them a door, to go where exactly?

"They're driving away!" She hissed, curling her hand under Four's arm to haul him up, Uriah mirroring her with Four's other arm. "What the fuck do-"

"Go, go! Drop the door!" Four hisses back, slapping their arms away. Tori glanced around as if she lost the door and she steps back not fully registering his command.

"Drop it where man?!" Uriah asked frantically as Four gripped the bottom of the door and began shoving it across the short scaffolding.

Tori snatched his arm to stop him, oblivious to the blood that wet her fingers. "Four what is the plan?!"

There _was_ a plan or seemed like one and then hell broke loose. She didn't want to be the one to say anything but she was sure Zeke wouldn't be able to run or walk very far. _That truck was our chance, his chance_.

"Four what do we-" Zeke gets cut off when the shrieking comes from the window above them.

Tori's eyes shoot to it and she very literally feels as if she has to swallow her beating heart back down into her chest cavity. "No fucking way."

All at once they realize just how fucked they are if they don't get off and away. Now.

"Yeah, that." Four shrugs as if he didn't just make their situation a butt-ton worse and just threw himself into it. He was trying to help.

Tori grips the door and drags it with Four to the edge where they drop it on top of the dead, crushing two of the four that stayed and catching the leg of the third, bringing it down.

Four leaps on top of the door, landing at an angle that makes Tori sure that he fucked his ankle up. He rolls onto his side on the ground and onto his back, away from the gangly claws that reach for him from under the wood.

She didn't have time to think and threw herself off after him, aiming her fall on top of the fourth that lunged for him. Her boots connect with it's back.

Four rolled again in time to dodge collision with it's body and Tori when they came crashing down. Pushing himself onto his hands and knees, wheezing for a few moments before regaining his wind.

Tori smashed it against the pavement under her weight and it flailed wildly beneath her twisting an arm around at inhuman angles trying to get at her.

She brings her boot heel down on it's head with a thick wet crunch.

The arms twitch.

She lifts her boot and brings it down once more just to make sure. A double tap. Then she wretches her drenched size 8 leather boot out of it's mushed cranium, spilling the contents like soup over the asphalt and wipes the gunk off on its already soiled clothing like a door mat.

The work made her sick to her stomach but she kept her face straight and stoic. She was already in a 'fuck the world' mode.

Real death is not graceful. It is not romantic. It is not a gentle sigh of breath as you float above yourself. It is bitter, and it is wretched.

It smells of bowels and blood and it sounds like the strange, terrified noises of a wounded animal, and it tastes like vomit rising in the back of your throat.

"Go, go, go!" She commanded with a snarl.

Behind her Uriah and Zeke jump but no sooner do they land on the ground the dead fling themselves out of the window, smacking their bodies against the scaffolding with loud thumps and cracks like hail in a dead storm.

"Run!" Tori and Four yell at the same time before they scramble, hauling ass away from the falling heaps, twitching and splaying themselves over the ground.

Zeke and Uriah make a beeline for a fence between two buildings and Four yells out. "No! Stay on the main road!"

He stumbles, limping on his sprained ankle and Tori swears audibly. "Get up!" She waved towards him, though he did not need any further encouragement, she ran for him and turned to sling his arm over her shoulder but a hand grasps her thigh as one of the window jumpers grab hold of her.

Tori hisses acrimoniously and kicks out. "Get the fuck off me!" She screams at it, trying to yank her leg free.

She feels the nails scrape into her skin, ripping through the fabric of her pants, digging into her thigh with a desperate strength.

The dead groans at her as if answering through teeth jammed at an oddly angled underbite, protruding from the side of it's face through the torn skin of it's cheek.

It's gore crusted mouth set in a twisted frown, exposing blood covered gums dripping with ropes of darkened saliva.

What caught her attention and made her lash out savagely were the broken glasses pushed into its face so far that it seemed part of it. Melded into flesh and skull with bent wire and glass.

The shattered lenses cut deep into it's cheek bones, creating a sad droopy eyed creature with blood streaming down like tears into grotesque pockets of skin gurgling in it's mouth.

Four fires a round into it's temple and it's head snapped back, but the claw like hands did not release their grip from her leg until she pried them off herself, planting her boot over its face as leverage to kick it away.

"Fucking Erudite!" She spits, before pulling Four's arm over her shoulder. Her hand clutches his side in an iron like grip, with her fingers digging into his shirt against his ribs.

* * *

 **\\\Eric/**

Tris kicked the back of his seat hard and he spun the wheel sharply almost missing his turn. It wasn't like he could see through the shit on the windshield all that well and if she wanted to think it was purposefully he'd punch her in the knee again.

He chewed on the inside of his cheek and steered with both hands gripping tight to the steering wheel, his boot like lead on the accelerator.

There was no way the dead could keep up. But he figured they'd been chased a relatively far distance and if the dead followed them from Abnegation, they'd follow them around a few blocks.

Eric kept his eyes on the road, squinting through the gore plastered front and he felt himself stuffing the nagging thoughts back.

Subconciously he knew the others wouldn't trust him. He had to earn it, if that were even possible at this point. He wasn't sure why he gave a damn about it.

But, the only alternative was to abandon them.

He weighed that if he did, they would either die or he would have to deal with them again eventually and he already went through the trouble of saving their asses. If he left _now_ it would have been a complete waste of time and effort and that was unacceptable.

Still, he wasn't looking forward to the confrontation that was surely awaiting him. _Yeah, don't kill each other, kill the dead_ , he mimicked in his head.

That was fine, if it weren't for the fact that both the dead and a handful of the living were out for his blood, or would be.

Two stiffs compared to the whole of angry confused left-over Dauntless, well, maybe they'd be stiff enough to return the favor sometime, he _did_ save them.

Tris thumped the gun on the roof and claimed his attention. "Do you see them?" He called back to her. He made sure to ask loud enough over the hum of the vehicles engine. "Stiff?"

He received no response and pushed the button on his door to lower the window and hang his head out to see for himself. Slowing to a steady 30 miles per hour, easing his foot off the peddle.

The road before him curved slightly to the right and he opted to driving up onto the tracks. Following it back around, passed the useless telephone poles and decrepit buildings.

He scanned the blurry mirage of the baking heat off the roadway, craning his neck to see the furthest visible point in the road while drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

There wasn't much he could do about the weather. The summer air was heavy and stifling. If there were any day for the world to end, a scorcher was definitely fitting.

A real hell on earth, right in their city surround and trapped in by a giant wall. It had a sick irony to it that even Eric couldn't appreciate, no matter how grim his humor.

He stared straight ahead, his jaw muscles bunching and he breathed in deep through his nose and let it slowly out through his pursed lips.

The smell that hung to the hood of the truck made his gut twist and churn, the chunks left all over were cooking and the entire vehicle looked as though it had been shit out of a dying whale.

Eric turned a little to the left and drove off to the shoulder of the road and pulled his head back into the shade of the truck.

The fuck-boy haircut did little to protect him from the sun and his scalp was beginning to burn and bead with sweat. A single drop of perspiration broke from his eyebrows slipping into his eye, forcing him to blink.

If Tris saw the others from her vantage, she would alert him, pound on the roof or something and Eric remembered some of the supplies he had in the bottom of the duffle bag.

He leaned over and plunged his hand in the unzipped bag on the passenger seat and riffled by touch till he felt the coolness of a water bottle, bringing it out.

"Stiff." He called back. "Hey, Stiff, I'm talking to you!"

Tris ducked in as he tossed the bottle over his shoulder. "Uhm thanks." She said, dropping her gun next to her on the seat to open it, she crouched rather than sat all the way down as if she were ready to spring back up.

Eric raised his brow at her in the rear view mirror. Her hair was wind blown and formed a wild tangle around her pale face. Her eyes, large, hollow, dark brown saucers sunk into her skull.

The dried specks of blood on her face were like freckles and he actually wanted to pick them off like scabs but, that would be weird and he dismissed the thought.

"Did I say you could drink that?" He asked. He could see that her lips were dry and he knew they probably hadn't had a drink all day. "It's for the windshield."

Tris didn't say anything back or look at him, stopping the bottle before it touched her lips and she stood back up with it. Clutching the roof latch handle for balance.

One did not come to be the leader of of a faction and feared by so many by being merciful and kind. Cruelty and brutality were the traits that earned his position.

But of course that is partially what lost it as well. He shook his head to himself, he was a dick and the end of the world might not change that.

"I'm kidding, Stiff." Eric relented. "Take small sips, you're dehydrated and if you drink it too fast it'll come back up. . .Wouldn't want the inside of the truck to look like the outside."

"Thanks." Tris replied dryly before disappearing half out the crawl hole once again. Eric clenched his jaw, she wouldn't drink it now and she didn't have Four's sense of humor it seems.

He slowed further down as she poured water over the crusted mess on the glass and waited till she ducked in before swishing the windshield wipers. It wasn't much of an improveent but good enough.

As soon as the road was visible through it Tris took her place back half out and Eric sped up. Within moments Tris began thumping on the roof again and he could already see them in the distance, way more than just the four they wanted to pick up.

His boot already pressing the peddle to the ground of the truck. The speedometer climbed higher and higher as it accelerated.

"They're being chased!" Tris yelled into the truck.

"I can see that!" He yelled back before checking the side view mirror to see if they had any pursuers themselves and was relieved to see the roadway clear behind them.

What he wasn't prepared for was Tris stepping too far off the seat and her boot slipping. Something completely out of his control.

He caught a flash of her in the rear view mirror and the crack of her head against the rim of the hole and he turned in his seat, lifting his boot off the accelerator to grab her by the arm and pull her up off the ground—perhaps a little hard, but he didn't have time to be a gentleman about it.

Eric looked back at the oncoming horde and then at Tris slumped unconscious on the seat the way he pushed her. This was bad. They would blame him no doubt.

He reached back and placed his palm on her shoulder to hold her down as he slammed on the brakes, traction spun the back of the vehicle making the tail and head turn till the side faced the road.

"Wake up stiff." Eric said stepping into the aisle over her in the seat. He pulled the gun sling off her and draped it around himself behind his back and rolled her over onto her side. "Stiff." He called patting her cheeks.

"hng." Her eyes fluttered and she garbled something unintelligent. Something along the lines of _'that really hurt.'_ He let out a huff of exasperation before pulling her legs up onto the seat and pushing her onto her back to lay her across it.

Quickly he felt around her head, pressing along her skull and his fingers found where a welt was beginning to form in the size of a walnut just behind her left ear. No blood from it.

He pressed around the column of her neck, no broken bones and he left the rest of her not out of respect for her but because he was sure she hadn't broken anything else.

Tris winced under his hands and he moved a clump of her hair away from her eyes to open them and check her pupils. "You're awfully clumsy." Eric quipped. "Watch where you're stepping next time."

Tris pushed his hands away and tried to sit up. "Have to-"

"Just stay the fuck down, you're half dead as it is." Eric hisses vehemently shoving her back into the seat. "I doubt you could fight, much less shoot a gun like this."

She didn't argue with him but her expression said enough, she wasn't happy with the situation but the entire situation was fucked up and making it worse wasn't an option Eric was going to offer her.

He reached around for his duffle bag and brought it to the second row, dropping it between his legs as he crouched down. "Patch yourself up, there's more water here."

He put a water bottle next to her on the seat and threw the rest back, she could look herself for what she needed and he felt he wasted enough time on her and needed to get the rest and get out of here.

Eric stepped to the side and unlocked the door, flinging it open, stepping out and down from the truck before jogging a few paces away.

He shouldered his rifle and peered through the scope. There were 12 counted chasing after Four and Tori, it made him wonder where they came from.

Zeke and Uriah reguarded him with grim nods and wary glances and he moved out of the way, gesturing for them to hurry up, into the truck.

"It's open!" Eric shouted. "Guns in the 3rd row, ask the Stiff!" He glared back through his scope passed Four and Tori about 15 feet away and breathed slowly, waiting out much distance as possible to make his headshots more accurate.

He fired into the head of some dead Stiff running in an awkward gait with a rope of dark saliva swishing from its jawless face.

The headshot was perfection and the body dropped. He repeated his breathing technique. Aim. Breathe in. Fire on exhale. He used little thought to the action.

He kept firing and the dead kept falling. Behind him he could hear Zeke and Uriah opening the truck doors and the clicks of guns being checked.

"Where the hell is Tris?" Four yelled bringing himself next to Eric.

"The other stiff is-" He lowered his gun and turned to Four and had just enough time to see the incoming assault and throw his right arm up to block Tori's punch.

His arm absorbed most of the blow but she threw her body into it and her fist glanced off his jacket and bounced off the side of his head.

The next few moments were foggy. There were gunshots sounding out behind him and in front of him though it wasn't him that was being shot, just beaten.

His vision went from bursts of colorful sparklers and fireworks, to a grainy whiteout. He pivoted to avoid another blow but it caught him in the side and had enough power behind it to send a bolt of pain through his ribs and he doubled over, clutching his side.

When he felt hands grip his jacket at the shoulders he immediately put his hands up catching the knee being thrown into his face and he hurdled forward grasping her leg, throwing Tori off her balance and onto her back.

Another fist caught him under the chin and his teeth snapped together nearly causing him to bite his tongue. He cocked his arm back and was ready to deliver his own punch in retaliation and stopped himself when he saw her expression beneath him.

Tori's eyes narrowed into slits, dark and aggressive, pure loathing.

The next blow came from a gun being slammed into the side of his face and he rolled onto his side, feeling the warm, gritty cement against his head.

He spit and watched red streamers splatter the pavement and looked up in time to see a boot catch him in the shoulder and shove him. He didn't resist the force and rolled with it, getting onto his hands and knees.

His vision cleared a bit, and along with it, his nerves. His lips felt stiff and tight and pain began to beat through his entire jaw as he caught his breath.

Eric tilted his head and felt the metal against his forehead. He stared down the long barrel of a gun grasped in Tori's hands, she was breathing heavily and her mouth was curled back over her teeth.

Four stood to her right his lips a bloodless line, just staring at him with cold eyes, both hands on his gun and behind them Zeke and Uriah obscured the road as they fired into the remaining stragglers of the dead horde.

Tori's expression was accusatory and he knew just like Tris and Four that she blamed him for all of this as well. Who wouldn't blame Erudite?

More than the desire to live at that moment was his desire to know why and how this happened so he could explain it all, understand it all.

Some fact that might absolve him of any responsibility or blame. Something that he could point to and say, "See? It wasn't us. It wasn't my fault."

But there was nothing like that.

Nothing to prove it wasn't their fault, and in all he was guilty, even if none of this happened there would still be a death toll on his hands.

"What are you waiting for?" Eric spat, before licking his bloodied gums, his thick red silva slobbered from the corner of his mouth and he gave her a crimson grin.

If Tori was waiting for him to give her a reason why she _shouldn't_ kill him, well, he was going to give her none.

"I would dearly like to put a bullet in your brain. But you know what? I'm going to let the _dead_ take care of you." Tori said through a thick snarl as she lowers her gun.

"What?" Eric spat, his heart was pounding in his head. There was such a tidal wave of thoughts that he just sat there with his mouth open.

Through the hazy shock of disbelief—or simply not wanting to believe—they would leave him there to be torn to shreds and devoured?

Not even the decency to spare a single bullet for him? He looked to Four.

The expression on Four's face changed, as he turned his gaze with his brows furrowed in the same disbelief to Tori.

It was the last thing Eric saw before she brought the butt of the gun across his face and knocked him unconscious.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading! Read and review! :D**


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